Edible Apple

We recently ran an article detailing a lawsuit filed against Apple for allegedly misrepresenting the speed of the iPhone 3G and because users were only able to remain on the 3G network for intermittent periods of time.

We initially reviewed the complaint, and came to the conclusion that the case would most likely be dismissed for a variety of reasons. But what made this lawsuit stand out was that the complaint revealed a complete misrepresentation and confusion of documented facts regarding the iPhone.

For example, the lawsuit asserts that Apple should have known how well the iPhone 3G was going to sell and that it therefore should have known that AT&T’s network wasn’t mature enough to handle the volume.

“Public reports indicate the companies anticipated sale of 10 million iPhone 3G phones. Yet, Apple profited by being the first to market, by gaining market share and by receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue selling millions of new 3G iPhones”

This is a bit confusing, and it seems evident that the attorneys handling the case haven’t done their homework. No one anticipated selling 10 million iPhone 3G’s, and it seems that that number is being confused with Apple’s initial goal to sell 10 million iPhones during the calendar year of 2008. And as for Apple profiting by being the first to market and gaining market share: well, it’s hard to even understand what is attempting to be said there.

The lawsuit goes on to accuse Apple of negligently manufacturing and designing the iPhone, two factors which both contributed to documented problems with AT&T’s 3G network when it was first released. Interestingly enough, the lawsuit alleges:

“No repairs appear to be presently available to fix the iPhone 3G nor the AT&T 3G Network so as to provide reliable 3G connectivity. Apple has tried several firmware fixes, which has not provided plaintiff or the Class with reliable or sustained 3G connectivity”

Either the plaintiff is experiencing unique 3G connectivity issues, or perhaps this lawsuit was initially drawn up before Apple released the iPhone 2.1 update on September 12, 2008. The 2.1 update seems to have fixed many of the issues that a good number of iPhone users were experiencing regarding 3G connectivity problems.

Essentially, our review of the lawsuit seemed to indicate a merit-less claim.  Admittedly there were 3G connection issues when the iPhone 3G first debuted, but these problems all but disappeared once Apple released a software update 2 months later.

Well, fast forward to December 2 when the following comment appeared under our initial article.

Well, the 2.1 firmware did not fix the issues Mr. Gillis or Mr. Keller are complaining about, which is probably the reason Apple just released 2.2 firmware to:

1. Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls;
2. Resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email;
3. Improved formatting of wide HTML email; and most importantly
4. Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display.

Check out page 32 of the October 2008 issue of PCWorld.com, titled “iPhone 3G Data Service Speeds Vary Wildly”.

Next time, before you beat on someone, perhaps you should get all the facts!

Sincerely,

A Conscientious Consumer

Well, interestingly enough, this conscientious consumer also left a name and email address, and a quick Google search revealed that our friendly consumer watchdog is actually the attorney representing the plaintiff in the lawsuit!  His name is Michael Rott and you can check out his profile over here.

Now, could it be possible that someone simply found out the attorney’s name and email address, researched the names of the plaintiffs that said attorney is representing, and then decided to spoof his identity in the form of a blog comment?  Hmm..  Also, we should mention that a quick IP check revealed that the comment originated from the same area in California where the attorneys offices are located.  Things are looking awfully suspicious.  But the most damming evidence is that the comment’s lack of knowledge regarding the iPhone 2.2 update.  As such, we’re pretty sure that the lawyer for this case and our friendly conscientious consumer are one and the same.

For starters, a few of the fixes in the 2.2 software update that the commenter points out aren’t even for problems the plaintiff mentioned in his lawsuit.  But more egregious is the fact that the commenter seemingly copied and pasted the 2.2 software fixes from Apple’s website, while mistakenly including fixes that were part of the 2.0 and 2.1 update as well.  Oops! This type of half-ass attempt at an argument seems all too familiar, and can only lead back to the author of the original complaint.  Might be time to get a new lawyer!

Related: Yet another iPhone 3G lawsuit