Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPhone
More lawsuits for Apple over 3G data speeds
In an oddly prescient lawsuit filed yesterday, a San Diego man claims that Apple and AT&T knowingly oversold the iPhone 3G, and overloaded the network, causing slow data throughput.
We may never know if this morning's outage was in any way related to the claims the man, William J. Gillis, makes in his filing. He is seeking class-action status for the suit. It follows a similar one filed in Alabama which questioned claims that 3G data speeds are twice as fast, as Apple advertised.
Gillis, a local "corporate entertainer" and "world renowned Master Magician" (according to his website), says the iPhone's packaging does not warn buyers that its performance may not meet customers' expectations. That SUV won't actually drive straight up a cliff face, you know.
Newsflash: Every mobile provider oversells the capacity of its network. Witness attending a convention or during a disaster: it's hard to make a call, because everything's jammed with people trying to make calls. It's the cornerstone of the mobile phone industry, and it's probably not going away because of this lawsuit.
Just add this one to the growing pile of work to do for Apple's corporate lawyers.
[Via AppleInsider]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
required said 5:24PM on 9-03-2008
"no one should ever sue a corporation" - generic neo con artist
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Trent said 5:31PM on 9-03-2008
Sue AT&T, the hardware is certainly capable of twice the speed. Seems like a case of shoot the messenger to me.
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Level 5 said 5:34PM on 9-03-2008
Complete bullcrap. So many 3G capable phones on AT&T's network, all having the same issues, and people go after Apple. The provider of phones, not the provider of the service. Idiots.
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PSM said 5:56PM on 9-03-2008
I don't care what the marketing says, of course they exaggerate and hyperbolize, but on the fact that AT&T is obviously completely unprepared in certain regions for the volume of traffic brought on by the iPhone, I fully support any level of punishment -- cruel, unusual or otherwise. This was a big shock to them that they'd sell millions of iPhones and people would want to use them?? I don't care what it costs, they should be upgrading their network as fast as physically possible, 24/7, until it WORKS. It's not fair to anyone who is paying for a data plan, iPhone user or not.
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Jed said 7:52PM on 9-03-2008
I live in New York City and never get 3g speeds over 700kbs...
But I was in Boca Raton, Florida last week and was getting 1.8 Mbps!!!!! I finally have verified that it's not my phone. Sorry I blamed you apple.
Obviously At&t has some explaining to do.
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Tom said 11:09PM on 9-03-2008
gah! why does apple need to get dragged into this crap!? they didn't make the friggin network, now did they? they make it to 3G specs and their responsibility stops there.
people should be punished for slowing down the court system with bulls**t
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John said 10:04AM on 9-04-2008
I am so tired of everyone wanting to sue over stupid little things. The judicial system is having its time wasted on things like this. Some people need to get a life.
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sockatume said 1:19PM on 9-04-2008
I never thought I'd see TUAW compare the iPhone to "a disaster"!
If you're seriously saying the iPhone's day-to-day usability is the comparable to using regular 3G handsets during a disaster, convention, or other truly exceptional load, you're not exactly complimenting the network's performance.
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