Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple iPhone Battery Lawsuit Dismissed
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
But, the iPhone isn't "just another phone", it's also an iPod, GPS, games, internet device (web & mail & internet radio etc). And more importantly, people actually are using all these features. A lot.
Which means its battery life is about a day, or less. That means if the battery performance degrades, it becomes a problem pretty darn quick; much quicker than with other phone models.
Which means its battery life is about a day, or less. That means if the battery performance degrades, it becomes a problem pretty darn quick; much quicker than with other phone models.
Hi
It appears there are some signs of intelligence after all, however, small it may be.
It speaks a lot of about how pathetic our society when we need to put stickers on hairdryers, stoves, ... that warn about injury because it produces heat. My question has always been, are people really just that stupid or just that greedy? Both? Either one is very much possible.
This lawsuit concerned me, since the iPod lawsuit back in '05 did go through and they won. Sheesh! Or how someone can win a lawsuit for burning themselves with coffee ( Liebeck vs. McDonald's Restaurants ).
Rightfully so.Well, Europe in general.
It appears there are some signs of intelligence after all, however, small it may be.
It speaks a lot of about how pathetic our society when we need to put stickers on hairdryers, stoves, ... that warn about injury because it produces heat. My question has always been, are people really just that stupid or just that greedy? Both? Either one is very much possible.
This lawsuit concerned me, since the iPod lawsuit back in '05 did go through and they won. Sheesh! Or how someone can win a lawsuit for burning themselves with coffee ( Liebeck vs. McDonald's Restaurants ).
Good God, I hope they never do. With a sealed battery, the machine I'm typing on would probably have exploded (a 1st gen MBP with the "bulging battery" problems).
Yes, thinking back to my experience too, I have never replaced a battery on any of my cell phones, digital cameras, etc. While they were all user-replacable, I never had to actually do so.
If you don't like it you shouldn't have bought a phone that doesn't have user replaceable battery in the first place. I don't agree with Apple's decision to sacrifice replaceable batteries for maybe a mm of thickness, but its the consumer's responsibility to figure out if this is going to impact them down the road or not. Suing Apple because you are ignorant is not a valid option IMHO.
Well, then again every cellphone on the market for the last 10 years has had a replaceable battery, and this hasn't stopped consumers from buying a new phone once every 18 months or so anyway. They usually buy a new one long, long before the battery dies. I'm on my 8th or 9th cellphone and there's still decent battery life left on my 1st phone.
No, I think it's just a good old case of Apple's Form Over Function(TM). They're obsessed with flush surfaces without screws, doors or joints, and they're obsessed with thinness. If they have to choose between making life much easier for the user or making a device 2 millimeters thicker, they choose the 2 millimeters.
"Imagine?" They already did, with the MacBook Air. It has no battery door. And I wouldn't put it past them to migrate this 'feature' to the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
I don't think AppleCare covers batteries, especially after a year or two of use.
If a case gets dismissed, they should make the filer cover the costs. That would stop a lot of nuisance lawsuits from occurring.
Good God, I hope they never do. With a sealed battery, the machine I'm typing on would probably have exploded (a 1st gen MBP with the "bulging battery" problems).
You didn't get it
And when it does, you can get a new battery from Apple, just like it says on the box.
I've had spare batteries for two of my phones and never ever used them - whenever I needed the spare it had always drained.
As for notebook batteries, I've never had to remove my MacBook one for any reason other than upgrading RAM and HD, so it could be argued that a replaceable battery in a notebook is pretty much pointless. When the battery fails, get a new one fitted by Apple service.
Apple can be the target of many lawsuits, some more justified than others. One widely reported lawsuit at the time of the iPhone's initial launch attempted to sue Apple over the iPhone's sealed battery, limited number of charge cycles and fee for battery replacement.
Bloomberg reports today that the lawsuit has been dismissed without a trial in a summary judgement.
Article Link
Stroke one for common sense, if you don't like the sealed battery, don't bloody buy it.
Oh yes it does. My old iPod I had Applecare on it died after 16 months, the battery was no longer chargeable. My Applecare warranty covered it. Apple didn't replace the battery, they replaced the iPod. Warranty covers anything that is not physical damage.
Do you know any details of that case? People often cite this as the epitome of frivolous lawsuits, yet many people don't know any facts:
- Stella was not driving when she pulled the lid off her scalding McDonald's coffee. Her grandson was driving the car, and he had pulled over to stop so she could add cream and sugar to the cup.
- Stella was burned badly (some sources say six percent of her skin was burned, other sources say 16 percent was) and needed two years of treatment and rehabilitation, including skin grafts.
- McDonald's quality control managers specified that its coffee should be served at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. Liquids at that temperature can cause third-degree burns in 2-7 seconds. Such burns require skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments to heal, and the resulting scarring is typically permanent.
- From 1982 to 1992, McDonald's coffee burned more than 700 people, usually slightly but sometimes seriously, resulting in some number of other claims and lawsuits.
- Witnesses for McDonald's admitted in court that consumers are unaware of the extent of the risk of serious burns from spilled coffee served at McDonald's required temperature, admitted that it did not warn customers of this risk, could offer no explanation as to why it did not, and testified that it did not intend to turn down the heat even though it admitted that its coffee is "not fit for consumption" when sold because it is too hot.
- While Stella was awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, this amount was reduced by 20 percent (to $160,000) because the jury found her 20 percent at fault.
- McDonald's refused an offer to settle with her for $20,000 in medical costs.
See True Stella Awards for more info (and sign-up for the free email write-ups of ridiculous lawsuits!)
Sorry for the OT post
It's a shame that some people make a living filing frivolous lawsuits in the hope of scoring a settlement or a favorable judgement. It makes a mockery of the legal system and creates the real risk of making legitimate lawsuits much harder to bring.
I'm sure the money Apple and other companies have to spend to keep a team of lawyers on hand just adds unnecessary cost to every Apple product sold.
In a case like this one, the people who brought the case should have to pay Apples legal costs, that may do a little to prevent lawsuits like this from being brought.
I'm sure the money Apple and other companies have to spend to keep a team of lawyers on hand just adds unnecessary cost to every Apple product sold.
In a case like this one, the people who brought the case should have to pay Apples legal costs, that may do a little to prevent lawsuits like this from being brought.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)
A removable battery would be nice but this was a silly reason to file a lawsuit. Everyone knew it was sealed from the beginning.
A removable battery would be nice but this was a silly reason to file a lawsuit. Everyone knew it was sealed from the beginning.
The thing is electric shavers are cheap, and typically last 6-7 years before the battery is worn out enough that you need a new one.
My circa 2003 Norelco's battery used to go about two weeks of daily shaving before needing a charge; now I get a few days. Since I can just plug it in every night, that doesn't matter. I can just keep using it even though the battery holds maybe 40% of the charge it used to.
However, for a phone, losing more than half the capacity isn't acceptible, and phones are a lot more expensive than shavers. Hence, replaceable batteries on phones make sense.
Not really the best analogy.
My circa 2003 Norelco's battery used to go about two weeks of daily shaving before needing a charge; now I get a few days. Since I can just plug it in every night, that doesn't matter. I can just keep using it even though the battery holds maybe 40% of the charge it used to.
However, for a phone, losing more than half the capacity isn't acceptible, and phones are a lot more expensive than shavers. Hence, replaceable batteries on phones make sense.
Not really the best analogy.
How do you know that? There are plenty of devices on the market that have user-replaceable batteries, and they still look quite nice.
EDIT: Wondercow, thank you for bringing that up. I had to study that case in class, and it always amazes me how people blindly bring that up as a failure of the US legal system, when it was actually a textbook example of the success of it.
1- Not really relevant to McDonald's culpability.
2- Not relevant to McDonald's culpability. Just because she was burnt badly, doesn't mean McDonalds must be "more guilty".
3- Typically most people boil water to make coffee. Which means heat it to almost boiling point - 100C, or 212F. Saying McDonalds do this doesn't make them evil/incompetent.
4- "McDonald's coffee burned more than 700 people"???? What next, "Boeing plane kills hundreds"? Now if McDonald's staff spilt coffee on 700 people they would have a genuine case. But how about we rephrase that to "700 people spilt hot coffee on themselves". Hmm, I love suing people for my clumsiness.
5- Most people are probably unaware at what temperatures the skin can be damaged. Hence, most people are careful with hot objects, for that very reason. I can cross bridges without "beware of falling off, drowning may kill" signs. I can climb ladders without "Do not fall off. Ground is hard, and far away" signs. I can drink hot coffee without "Don't spill this hot drink on you. Hot burns" signs.
6- 20% at fault, for spilling a hot drink over herself. I wonder if I spill my latte over me, who takes the other 80%? Or if I spill it into my Mac, who'll pay? It doesn't say anything on the latte about "Lattes fry Macs".
7- I'm not surprised they refused to settle. In their shoes, I would have done the same. The law is an ass, quite frankly.
When reasonable lawsuits prevail, good for the customers.
But when stupid, idiotic, frivolous Apple-targeting lawsuits get shot down by the Courts, then the morons responsible for filing the frivolous lawsuit *SHOULD* be automatically counter-sued by Apple Inc. and those frivolous suiting morons need to be jailed. Jailed for wasting everyone's time, wasting taxpayers money, jailed for exaggerating and stretching the truth, jailed for wasting the time and money of the Legal Courts, wasting the time of Apple, wasting the time of a dozen lawyers, etc. For good measure, disbar and de-license the lawyer who eagerly pursued such wasteful and frivolous litigations as well.
But when stupid, idiotic, frivolous Apple-targeting lawsuits get shot down by the Courts, then the morons responsible for filing the frivolous lawsuit *SHOULD* be automatically counter-sued by Apple Inc. and those frivolous suiting morons need to be jailed. Jailed for wasting everyone's time, wasting taxpayers money, jailed for exaggerating and stretching the truth, jailed for wasting the time and money of the Legal Courts, wasting the time of Apple, wasting the time of a dozen lawyers, etc. For good measure, disbar and de-license the lawyer who eagerly pursued such wasteful and frivolous litigations as well.
That is quite easy. If a company deliberately and knowingly sells coffee that is much too hot for human consumption and dangerous (a lot hotter than the coffee that comes out of your coffee machine at home), and if that company has already caused SEVEN HUNDRED injuries by doing that, and has repeatedly been told by authorities that their coffee is dangerously hot but refused to do something about it, then they will lose a court case.
It is obvious that when you sell coffee, some people _will_ spill it over themselves or over others. If you sell coffee that is so hot that what should be a little mishap turns into third degree burns, and you continue to do so after being told about the danger repeatedly, you have to assume responsibility for what you are doing.
This is about the same as if Apple had advertised "iPhone with easily user exchangeable battery". If they had done that, they would have lost the case. They didn't, that's why they won.
Hi
As far as my prior experiences it does. I haven't read the agreement / terms lately, so I don't know if that has changed.
I don't know how effective it would be but it is a good idea. A penalty charge.