Apple Will Face Lawsuit Over Phone-Switching iMessage Issue

[dansix]

This is the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit. Plus, it would be very hard to prove damage in this case.

No, it's not frivolous... I had a really hard time as well before because my messages would not be forwarded to my android device... you wouldn't know unless you actually experienced it. It's anti-competition. It makes it appear that the Android phone is the problem when in fact it is the iPhone. I have switched back to the iPhone since then, but I always believed this to be unfair.

----------

This should be quite obvious that if you switch to an android device you will not be able to use iMessage, you should have noticed that it does not work at all when you message your android buddies... unless you are the biggest moron on earth you need to be advised about this fact...

Are you kidding me? Why would the average Joe know that he has to disable iMessage before switching to Android? Think.

This has been a known issue for at least 3 years and Apple has done nothing. I'm glad they're finally getting sued for it. I own an iPhone but this practice was just total BS to me. When I switched to Android, I noticed the problem... I thought about suing too. It's anti-competitive because it makes it look like Android phones are defective when in fact it's Apple's fault... terrible. I love Apple products but c'mon... this is common sense.

 

[rsocal]

Just don't switch to Android, problem solved.....kidding

I'm very surprised it took this long! I'm a big Apple fan, and I didn't know this exsisted. It's nice to see you can fix it yourself now.

I don't believe its class action status, and don't want to see our courts tied up with it. I really just hate lawsuits for this kind of stuff! That's my 2 cents.....

 

[flyinmac]

and apple doesnt have to prove that it was not intentional - in fact it is pretty obvious that it was not intentional...

I also dont see how this issue caused her to cancel her contract with verizon...

and if she wins this case - doesnt it mean anyone who feels any software doesnt do everything they thought it would could sue for damages?

Apple also didnt inform me that when I change my email address or phone number I will no longer receive iMessages - and ATT failed to tell me i would not receive phone calls. I assumed it was just linked to my iPhone and it would update to the new address and number automatically....

Common sense tells you that if you change your phone number that you'll have to inform people of the change.

We have a law that requires phone companies to let you move your phone number between carriers and other phones. As such, it is expected that you do not need to inform all your friends and business contacts that you now have a Samsung phone. And what good would it do anyway? You still have the same phone number you had before. There is nothing they would be doing differently to send you a text. They'd still be sending it to the same phone number, and everyone with common sense would expect the message to be delivered to that phone number.

Apples implementation prevented the delivery of text messages from going to the subscribers phone number.

In all actuality, there is no benefit to iMessages. It is simply a trap. I myself never enabled it. And I avoided it because it does not offer me any benefit over my cellular texting service. I don't need my texts routed through a 3rd party.

But in the end, Apple created and pushed their iMessage interface. They didn't tell anyone that it would forever prevent you from taking your existing phone number to another phone.

And, when people exercised their legal right to move to a different company's phone while keeping their same phone number, Apple prevented the delivery of their text messages.

They used a monopoly practice to lock their customers into iPhone. This is an even clearer violation of laws regulating monopoly practices than the whole Internet Explorer legal sanctions.

In the case of Microsoft, they were found to have violated laws regarding Monopolies, even though you could still use Netscape and other browsers without interference.

In this case, Apple has specifically interfered with people's rights to use another competing phone manufacturer.

 

[ProfessorHenry]

Not sure who this will benefit aside from the lawyers.

 

[Swift]

The Deregister tool was a long time coming and should've been introduced at around the same time iMessage was.

But shockingly, here come the Applelogists!

Even more shockingly, here come the Apple haters!

 

[flyinmac]

This should be quite obvious that if you switch to an android device you will not be able to use iMessage, you should have noticed that it does not work at all when you message your android buddies... unless you are the biggest moron on earth you need to be advised about this fact...

Your assuming that every person out there realized that iMessages is somehow different from basic texting. There is no apparent obvious difference to the average user.

But, let's take this example and run with it. Assuming that you know iMessage is different. What on earth would prompt you to think that you wouldn't get TEXT messages after switching to a Samsung phone?

It honestly would not have occurred to anyone until the headlines started. And by then it was too late.

Until 2 days ago, long after this was in front of a judge, it was not possible for a user to get out of Apples trap.

Now, if Apple had routed iMessages through an app other than the standard texting app, and kept it so that it was more like Apple's iChat, then people would have expected it to be a iPhone only service because texts would come to the Texting app and iChat's to iChat.

No one would expect iChat messages to show up if they switched to Samsung phones. But everyone expects text messages to show up.

 

[flyinmac]

Even more shockingly, here come the Apple haters!

Naturally, anyone who thinks independently and doesn't support Apple when they're wrong, must hate Apple.

i suppose you believe that you must praise your children regardless of what they do. Otherwise you don't love them.

If they rob a bank, and get caught, you'll be right there saying that they didn't do anything wrong and anyone who says different doesn't love them.

Most people aren't so blind that they cannot see the truth and stand on the side of "right". Most people can like a company's products without feeling the need to defend the company when they're wrong. Most people can praise a company's good actions and simultaneously condemn their poor choices. The same way that we do with children. Being able to see the mistakes that are made, and call them on their bad behavior, doesn't mean we hate them.

The fanaticism and blind defense lines surrounding Apple are ridiculous. Fanboys spewing hate speech anytime someone dares to criticize poor choices.

I'll defend Apple where they're right, I'll critcise them when they're wrong. To do less means they learn nothing. Blind fanboys fuel the flames to their own destruction. You could become an independent thinker, and encourage greatness and discourage poor decisions. If people speak up instead of being sheep, everyone wins (including Apple).

I congratulate this woman for calling Apple to task. Otherwise, there would have never been a way out of Apple's trenches. And, even if Apple locked everyone in, that still does not help consumers as monopolies become stagnant.

 

[Swift]

Common sense tells you that if you change your phone number that you'll have to inform people of the change.

We have a law that requires phone companies to let you move your phone number between carriers and other phones. As such, it is expected that you do not need to inform all your friends and business contacts that you now have a Samsung phone. And what good would it do anyway? You still have the same phone number you had before. There is nothing they would be doing differently to send you a text. They'd still be sending it to the same phone number, and everyone with common sense would expect the message to be delivered to that phone number.

Apples implementation prevented the delivery of text messages from going to the subscribers phone number.

In all actuality, there is no benefit to iMessages. It is simply a trap. I myself never enabled it. And I avoided it because it does not offer me any benefit over my cellular texting service. I don't need my texts routed through a 3rd party.

But in the end, Apple created and pushed their iMessage interface. They didn't tell anyone that it would forever prevent you from taking your existing phone number to another phone.

And, when people exercised their legal right to move to a different company's phone while keeping their same phone number, Apple prevented the delivery of their text messages.

They used a monopoly practice to lock their customers into iPhone. This is an even clearer violation of laws regulating monopoly practices than the whole Internet Explorer legal sanctions.

In the case of Microsoft, they were found to have violated laws regarding Monopolies, even though you could still use Netscape and other browsers without interference.

In this case, Apple has specifically interfered with people's rights to use another competing phone manufacturer.

They intended this as a way to keep people on Apple? Are you kidding? You know, you get free messages over plain data to every other Apple phone. And they're among the very most secure commercial messaging? WHY DIDN'T THEY SHARE THAT WITH OTHERS? Because the other guys have their own software, in most cases. Best thing, get the carriers to pass messages between all platform with very good security, paid for by the big bucks you spend on Data & Voice. If Apple makes it harder to use your new phone, how many people are going to stay with a company because of that? They've already left! The villain in this scenario made it harder in a way unknown to you (and to the villain) once you leave. If that's monopoly, that's completely incompetent. But well worth a conspiracy theory, because by normal logic it's not going to make any sense.

Here's what it's like: the Apple ID that you use to activate the phone has to be used if your phone gets stolen and wiped. Ha-ha, thieves who don't know your Apple ID! Oh, but that also makes it harder for you to be selling your phone if you forget to wipe that out too when you're erasing all your software to sell as a generic iPhone. You can fix it, but it's tougher. You might have to call Apple, or google "How to remove my Apple ID from an iPhone I'm selling." Or you can sue to get the millions of dollars in horrifying damages this month-long horror has caused. Because they made a mistake, and inconvenienced somebody, they must have done it for criminal reasons, and it's totally like the pressure that Windows put on its hardware "partners" to not sell any Linux computers or any other browser but Internet Exploder.

Except it's not like that at all. Somebody goofed.

 

[flyinmac]

Not sure who this will benefit aside from the lawyers.

It has already benefitted everyone. Don't you think for a minute that this tool would have shown up without legal action.

It took 3 years to make an opt out tool? Yeah right.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

If this was fixed 9 months ago, how did it happen to me 2 months ago?

There was a work around 9 moths ago not a fix. Even the current fix will not prevent this issue from being a royal pain in the butt.

The second time I had this issue was because I was having signal problems with my Nexus 5 at my new place in Toronto. I decided to use my sons iPhone 4s that he was using as an iPod to test the signal in my area. I Put my SIM card in his phone for 30 seconds to see if it would connect to the network and it did. A week later with my son is back in Montreal and my ex wife calls me yelling a screaming that people are sending my son text messages. The 30 seconds in his phone hijacked my number!

My son showed the messages that appeared when he got wifi from my girlfriend, sister and a few other people. My sister had wrote one nasty text about my ex wife, it was meant for me but my ex wife got it.

LOL thus is hilarious - has a demon possessed Siri on that iPhone 4s?

 

[JustThinkin']

Interesting problems you have. Also interesting how they don't relate to anything in this case.

Don't worry, it'll be happening to you someday. And you'll just have to deal with it. It's called life, I think.

Apple doesn't owe anybody anything here. My electronic devices function the way they're designed. I often don't appreciate Apple's lawyers, but they're exactly right here. Apple isn't responsible for someone else's subjective idea about how they think a detail of their product should work. By that standard iTunes should have had 200 successful lawsuits against it by now!

This isn't a safety issue or something. It's just an inconvenience for some users. All they have to do is tell others (those who's messages they actually care about) to use the phone number instead. Though Apple's been slow to fix it, I doubt it originated as anything other than Apple's engineers failing to think of a better solution when they designed it. After that, it could have become anything from being considered too low of a priority to address, to some executives being happy it functioned that way.

But a lawsuit is ridiculous here. In fact, some of the verbiage doesn't even make sense - that this issue forced a user to violate her contract with Verizon, or some such nonsense.

 

[Swift]

Naturally, anyone who thinks independently and doesn't support Apple when they're wrong, must hate Apple.

You jump to a vast criminal conspiracy. Really? And this is "independent thinking"?

It's a goof. Messages is a way to share free and secure messages with other iPhones. A-ha! Why no, no other smartphone maker does things that can only be used on their brand of device! Just Apple, who cruelly give iPhone users a way to send texts to other iPhones. Why not the rest?

What app? Which is secure? Which is free?

I just sold my iPhone 5 to Gazelle and got the 6. When you sell, because of the added security of the Apple ID and Find my iPhone, and because they wanted my AT&T phone unlocked, I had to go through a three-or-four step procedure to turn off Find my iPhone, unlock it from AT&T as a carrier, and delete your old number from Messages. I managed to do it all, and it did seem to be they could figure out a way to do it all with less hassles. I bet you they will. But I was not leaving iPhone. I was moving to a new one. Why would they want to make it harder for me? Answer: they don't.

 

[Jakexb]

How is it that the same exact judge is ruling for ALL of the Apple-related cases? Surely there's a reason for this.

 

[C DM]

Don't worry, it'll be happening to you someday. And you'll just have to deal with it. It's called life, I think.

Apple doesn't owe anybody anything here. My electronic devices function the way they're designed. I often don't appreciate Apple's lawyers, but they're exactly right here. Apple isn't responsible for someone else's subjective idea about how they think a detail of their product should work. By that standard iTunes should have had 200 successful lawsuits against it by now!

This isn't a safety issue or something. It's just an inconvenience for some users. All they have to do is tell others (those who's messages they actually care about) to use the phone number instead. Though Apple's been slow to fix it, I doubt it originated as anything other than Apple's engineers failing to think of a better solution when they designed it. After that, it could have become anything from being considered too low of a priority to address, to some executives being happy it functioned that way.

But a lawsuit is ridiculous here. In fact, some of the verbiage doesn't even make sense - that this issue forced a user to violate her contract with Verizon, or some such nonsense.

Some people are fine living with problems, most prefer to deal with them to make sure they are addressed. Some people are even fine not really understanding those problems or knowing much about them, most are not.

----------

Why would Apple have to be compelled to support customers who stopped buying their product and went to someone else? If anything, Apple could have used this as a strong barrier to prevent users from leaving the iOS ecosystem.

Actually understanding the issues here would explain it all.

 

[69Mustang]

In my work I use so many interconnected electronic devices that every week I find one that just won't function. After about 5 minutes I notice that I'm the idiot, because it's not plugged in - either to the power source, or to the other device. They never seem to understand what they're supposed to be doing.

Nevertheless, this is getting very annoying, and I'm about ready to file a lawsuit. I really shouldn't have to think about which cables go where. And I definitely shouldn't have any problems when I yank a cable or substitute a different part!

One this is pretty obvious. You don't understand the issue. Otherwise you wouldn't be posting such inane comments. Snark only works when applied appropriately. Maybe a better understanding of the issue would help you.

 

[C DM]

Not sure who this will benefit aside from the lawyers.

Oh you know, perhaps those people who would run into these issues and wouldn't have a way to resolve them until Apple actually does something about it all (as they finally started to, after essentially years of not doing much...surely purely coincidentally to the lawsuit picking up some momentum).

 

[kdarling]

In all actuality, there is no benefit to iMessages.

It made sense when text messages cost a lot, and unlimited data was free.

Now, of course, the opposite is often true.

It is simply a trap.

It's like Facetime. Apple got people to drop Skype with the promise that Facetime would be an open standard. Whatever happened with that?

 

[JustThinkin']

One this is pretty obvious. You don't understand the issue. Otherwise you wouldn't be posting such inane comments. Snark only works when applied appropriately. Maybe a better understanding of the issue would help you.

Thanks for the helpful comment. I had no idea how much I didn't understand.

Call me a snarky idiot or whatever you want. The fact is these people aren't paying attention to what's going on with their devices, but then they blame Apple. Just as I wasn't paying attention to my devices and thought they were broken.

If you still don't get the connection I can't help you.

 

[Santabean2000]

No, it's not frivolous... I had a really hard time as well before because my messages would not be forwarded to my android device... you wouldn't know unless you actually experienced it. It's anti-competition. It makes it appear that the Android phone is the problem when in fact it is the iPhone. I have switched back to the iPhone since then, but I always believed this to be unfair.

----------



Are you kidding me? Why would the average Joe know that he has to disable iMessage before switching to Android? Think.

This has been a known issue for at least 3 years and Apple has done nothing. I'm glad they're finally getting sued for it. I own an iPhone but this practice was just total BS to me. When I switched to Android, I noticed the problem... I thought about suing too. It's anti-competitive because it makes it look like Android phones are defective when in fact it's Apple's fault... terrible. I love Apple products but c'mon... this is common sense.

There may be a problem, but is a lawsuit the answer to these sorts of things..?

Talk about 1st world problems - and 1st world solutions...

 

[itr81]

Her again? Is she the only judge in California or something?

Apparently. I think she likes being in the limelight so if it goes against apple then it'll be in the news.

 

[unplugme71]

It's actually her fault. She switched to a different phone.

 

[Gasu E.]

This isn't what I said, but I don't see the difference between saying "you are an idiot" and quoting the entirety of someones post and saying "how idiotic" - Oh, well, just saying. Its all subjective.

You may not see the difference; and even I may not see much of a difference. But I believe the Mods here do. They seem to care much more about outright aggression than hurt feelings.

 

[JustThinkin']

Some people are fine living with problems, most prefer to deal with them to make sure they are addressed. Some people are even fine not really understanding those problems or knowing much about them, most are not.

Perhaps another thinly veiled insult?

Oh you know, perhaps those people who would run into these issues and wouldn't have a way to resolve them until Apple actually does something about it all (as they finally started to, after essentially years of not doing much...surely purely coincidentally to the lawsuit picking up some momentum).

I keep reading comments that that there was no way to resolve this, when in fact there have always been multiple ways to resolve it. All Apple has done with this new utility is make the situation easier to deal with.


Of course the issue should be addressed, and Apple needs to continue to do more about it. It's not only good business, it's just plain nice to care about the problems this has caused for many people.

My disagreement is with those who believe it's someone else's responsibilty to fix it for them, rather than fixing it themselves when they can. It was an Apple design decision (albeit a dubious one), not something that's objectively "broken."

Always blaming others for not meeting your expectations is a mindset that's hard to change, and it affects one's politics, as well as his whole approach to life. While one's entitled to create his own misery through this belief, foisting it upon others through the courts is going too far.

 

[Gasu E.]

The second time I had this issue was because I was having signal problems with my Nexus 5 at my new place in Toronto. I decided to use my sons iPhone 4s that he was using as an iPod to test the signal in my area. I Put my SIM card in his phone for 30 seconds to see if it would connect to the network and it did. A week later with my son is back in Montreal and my ex wife calls me yelling a screaming that people are sending my son text messages. The 30 seconds in his phone hijacked my number!

My son showed the messages that appeared when he got wifi from my girlfriend, sister and a few other people. My sister had wrote one nasty text about my ex wife, it was meant for me but my ex wife got it.

Great story! This is such a great story, that I have to admit that I'm glad that you had to suffer through it, just so I could hear it! Expect to see it "written into my next screenplay"...

----------

A simple fix and surprised it took Apple a couple years to release the tool to deregister but still not individual lawsuit worthy or class action.

I doubt the fix was that simple. Typically, there are a lot of "gotchas" that need to be dealt with. For instance, how does Apple ensure that your deactivation request is valid-- if they can't verify that you are actually the person entitled to make the request, the solution will create a bigger mess than the original problem. There are a lot of issues like that, and solving them may take tying together both information from different sources and IT systems that were never intended to work together. I have a lot of experience specifying solutions to problems like this; and the point is, you can never say a problem is "simple" until you have identified every single situation and use case. Generally, "simple" IT system problems aren't actually simple.

 

[C DM]

Perhaps another thinly veiled insult?


I keep reading comments that that there was no way to resolve this, when in fact there have always been multiple ways to resolve it. All Apple has done with this new utility is make the situation easier to deal with.


Of course the issue should be addressed, and Apple needs to continue to do more about it. It's not only good business, it's just plain nice to care about the problems this has caused for many people.

My disagreement is with those who believe it's someone else's responsibilty to fix it for them, rather than fixing it themselves when they can. It was an Apple design decision (albeit a dubious one), not something that's objectively "broken."

Always blaming others for not meeting your expectations is a mindset that's hard to change, and it affects one's politics, as well as his whole approach to life. While one's entitled to create his own misery through this belief, foisting it upon others through the courts is going too far.

No insults, veiled or unveiled. Just commentary about general populace.

As for resolving this, plenty of articles and threads on this clearly pointed out that that while some workarounds or solutions worked for some people they didn't work for many others. So clearly a solution wasn't in place and a problem was present.

Again the very fact that Apple had to come out with just now with a tool to deal with it demonstrates that whatever solutions or workarounds that might have been present weren't good enough and didn't work for enough people that a whole separate tool was necessary. The tool wasn't simply make it easier the tool was to make it possible for quite a few that couldn't find other solutions that worked for them.

People can't fix an issue that's on Apple's side of things by themselves. Not only is it not their responsibility but more importantly there's nothing reasonable they can do to fix it beyond what Apple provides, and for quite a few whatever Apple provided didn't resolve the issue for them. That's the reality of it all supported by enough articles and threads about it. Thinking otherwise is fine if someone chooses to, but it wouldn't be based on facts and reality of it all.

As for meeting or not meeting expectations, again it seems that various people have a flawed understanding of what the actual issues are under discussion. It's all been pointed out and explained too many times now, but it seems some misconceptions still exist. I guess there's not much more that could be done about it after all the explanations that already have been provided--some people will continue having misconceptions or lack some understanding of the involved issues. That's the reality it would seem. Oh well.