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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple today was hit by a class action lawsuit from iPhone 5 and 5s users on AT&T's network. The lawsuit alleges that the Cupertino company knowingly concealed a defect in the iPhone 5 and 5s that caused the devices to use LTE data even when connected to a Wi-Fi network.

iPhone-5s.jpg

In September 2012, some iPhone 5 users noticed the bug after finding that they were going through more data than usual. Shortly after the issue came to light, Apple and Verizon issued a fix for the bug, with Verizon confirming that users affected by the bug would not be charged for their data use.

However, according to an investigation by law firm Hagens Berman, Apple and AT&T never issued a fix nor did they acknowledge the defect. The firm and plaintiff Thomas Palmer believe that Apple should not have kept the fix from AT&T customers, and that the company failed to address the issue even as it released iOS 7 and the iPhone 5s.
We believe Apple should not have withheld this repair for AT&T Wireless subscribers for any period of time. By withholding this information and repair, consumers were unaware of the defect and were left to sort out high cellular data charges with their wireless carriers.
Specifically, the law firm says the defect occurred when a user streamed "high volumes of data" for 10 to 20 minutes. In this case, the GPU would take over all video decompression, decoding and presentation to the display. Because of this, the CPU was not needed and would go to "sleep" to conserve battery life. When the CPU went to sleep, the defect caused both the iPhone 5 and 5s to switch from streaming data via Wi-Fi to LTE.

Article Link: Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit for iPhone 5 Wi-Fi Defect That Caused Data Overages
 

pad1986

macrumors newbie
Apr 16, 2015
22
14
I'm not sure this is an Apple problem...

Apple are not responsible for your data plan... essentially it would have to be the phone companies to notice an issue and then either rectify the problem or contact apple to report an issue.

Clearly this wasn't affecting all carriers and all phones.

Carriers install their own profiles onto the phone - so i think it should be the individual phone companies that should be taken to court for not issuing a fix or informing their customers of the possible problem.
 
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kgtenacious

macrumors regular
Jun 15, 2010
109
76
I'm not sure this is an Apple problem...

Apple are not responsible for your data plan... essentially it would have to be the phone companies to notice an issue and then either rectify the problem or contact apple to report an issue.

Clearly this wasn't affecting all carriers and all phones.

Apple wrote the code, Verizon and Apple both knew about the code problem and issued a fix, why Apple didn't offer the fix to ATT is beyond me. This certainly is an Apple problem, as well as an ATT problem.
 

Altis

macrumors 68040
Sep 10, 2013
3,167
4,898
I've had 6 GB/month for over 5 years now (all with iPhones), and I never once went anywhere near that limit... until I got my iPhone 6. I've been over or near every month since.

It seems like something's up.
 

73b

macrumors regular
Aug 22, 2014
178
374
East Coast
I was affected by this bug on Verizon and never found a solution. Apparently Verizon's fix worked but I was still charged for overages caused by random usage of over 100MB overnight during previous months. Wish I could get in on this.
 

kgtenacious

macrumors regular
Jun 15, 2010
109
76
I love bugs like this! Totally bizarre sequence of steps that leads to an unchecked failure. Whoever tracked this one down was feeling good that day!
If you read the complaint, especially section III, you'll see that it was not by any means a bizarre sequence of steps.
 

Tbone999

macrumors member
Jun 18, 2009
73
2
I had this same problem with my daughter's iPhone 4. ATT claimed large data overages; when I looked them up they all occurred at around 3-4 a.m., a time at which my daughter was in bed in our house and any activity on the iPhone should have been on wifi. (The other issue being, what was going on at that hour with her phone when she was asleep.) ATT blamed Apple and Apple said I had to take it up with ATT; the issue was never addressed.
 

PBRsg

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2014
347
592
Seriously?! Only in America. I'm not responsible, I'm too dumb to find out how to change something and everything is 'your' fault.

This behaviour is different from what is documented and mobile plans are almost always more expensive than home Wi-Fi. I don't like ridiculous lawsuits but it seems like this could have cost people money.
 
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