Apple Will Face Lawsuit Over Phone-Switching iMessage Issue

[Someyoungguy]

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...

No, the biggest moron on Earth thinks this is about using iMessage on Android. In fact, the article states that basic text messaging, a service that she was paying for through her carrier, could not work on her non-Apple device due to Apples's error. This is open and shut unless they have an out in their TOS.

 

[Alimar]

None of my texts are getting through to my kids at the dinner table since they switched to Android!

 

[H2SO4]

I don't see this going far. Even if Apple released a tool to correct the issue, I'm sure there was some clause in the excessively long TOS that excluded Apple from any liability from iMessage.

As much as I might agree that going to court over this might seem ridiculous, any ridiculous clause in a TOS isn’t worth the paper it’s written on and the court will see this.
There are lots of clauses in my employment contract that will be unenforceable in a tribunal if it came to it regardless of whether I’ve signed up to it or not.

 

[WordMasterRice]

There was a solution. Turn off iMessage from your phone before you switch. If you have switched put your sim back into said phone and disable it.

1. This doesn't always fix the issue.

2. Try swapping the SIM on a Verizon phone and let me know how that works for ya.

 

[lostngone]

Easy solution. Don't switch to a non-iOS device!

 

[jase1125]

Looking forward to my portion of the settlement. While I happily own an iPhone 6, it was ridiculous for apple to allow this to happen. There was nothing in the iMessages welcome message that informed a user you were tied to their service. In fact, upon iPhone activation it automatically enrolls a user in iMessages. I ran into this issue and is one of several things to causes a little hate toward apple.

 

[MacTCE]

I can't imagine how the the plaintiff's lawyer is going to "claim" damages on this one.

 

[frozen220]

I agree

As much of an admitted Apple fanboy I am, I actually agree with this lawsuit. It took 3 years for Apple to provide an official fix for this, and caused much frustration for so many who switched to other phones. Apple should have thought about this ahead of time and made sure it was easy to un-register a phone number from iMessage from the very beginning. And the fact that it took so long, I mean, it really was a dick move on Apple's part to not address this issue in a timely manner.

 

[iBlazed]

Sometimes companies don't understand when you ask them nicely to fix something. Sometimes a lawsuit is needed to light a fire under their ass. They had years to fix this and made the choice to actively ignore it.

 

[John6Plus]

Silently swallowing messages inside iMessage when iPhone users send them to ex-iPhone users doesn't look good. I don't think it was intentional, but they sure as heck didn't do anyone any favors by waiting til now to offer a fix.

But whatever the intentions, the end result is the same: this is anti-competitive behavior. A major phone manufacturer blocking messages to non-Apple phones. Maybe just a bug, but does it really matter? If you accidentally go over the speed limit you can still get a ticket.

I don't see the lawsuit likely to result in much monetary damage to Apple - but I'm not quick to dismiss the notion either.

Out of curiosity, since it's been a known issue for years, how did people get around it before? A phone call to Apple?

 

[numlock]

Easy solution. Don't switch to a non-iOS device!

not sure if serious or not but im pretty sure this is exactly not the way apple wants this lawsuit to progress.

 

[Born Again]

Guys

Apple is smart

This was a strong arm tactic to make leaving apple a painful experience

 

[KrakaJap]

This is completely retarded. Why not do this BEFORE Apple took action. And in all fairness it's hardly lawsuit material in the first place, more of an inconvenience (although admittedly quite a big one if your a tech noob.)

Huh? Read the OP again... this lawsuit was filed long before the "fix". And it's much more lawsuit material than most lawsuits these days. I highly doubt this issue was intentional, however, the amount of time it took for them to fix it does seem a bit confusing.

 

[Windlasher]

"Plaintiff does not have to allege an absolute right to receive every text message in order to allege that Apple's intentional acts have caused an actual breach or disruption of the contractual relationship," Koh wrote.

I may be wrong, but since Verizon forwards all messages to her device, and Verizon handles both the cellular and the data portion of her service, shouldn't this be on Verizon? Once she switched from an iPhone, there wouldn't have been any contractual relationship any longer with Apple.

The messages no matter how they are sent hit Verizon's network do they not?

 

[jmgregory1]

A customer of mine who was using an iPhone then switched to Android caused somewhat of an issue related to this, but the issue was that he was also texting through his iPad. So he would send a text through his phone, and when I would write back, it would go to his iPad, which he didn't necessarily check all the time.

I solved the issue by turning off Messages before texting him - after maybe a week of doing this, Messages on my iPhone "learned" that he was a text account and stopped sending messages to his iPad. It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't a deal breaker either.

 

[Someyoungguy]

I can't imagine how the the plaintiff's lawyer is going to "claim" damages on this one.

You can't? I pay $5/month for 200 texts. If I could no longer receive them from iPhone users, I could say Apple owes me the full $5, or the percentage of my friends who were on iPhones during the period. If I knew the lottery was trying to send me an announcement that I won $1M, I do not think I could claim that, as no message has guaranteed delivery.

 

[iBlazed]

Guys

Apple is smart

This was a strong arm tactic to make leaving apple a painful experience

No, they're pretty effing stupid actually. It's not like the people who had this issue just gave up and switched back to iPhones, and after this wonderful experience you can bet your ass they never will. Apple just pissed off a bunch of customers who may very well have gotten sick of their android devices after a year or two and switched back to iPhones, and now they lost them forever. Very smart!

 

[burnout8488]

Prior to the launch of the web tool, there was no way for users to effectively remove themselves from the iMessage system.

This is not true. I have called Apple customer service 2 or 3 times in the past and they were able to remove my number from iMessage very quickly upon request. They have been able to do this for a long time, just not online.

 

[solodogg]

Apples to oranges.

hah, i see what you did there...

 

[err404]

While I am generally pro Apple, this case is justified. This is such a basic oversight in the design that it should have been addressed in the first patch after it was released.
Frankly even the new tool is not enough to fix this issue. There should simply be an automated cleanup of derelict phones.

 

[jonAppleSeed]

The messages no matter how they are sent hit Verizon's network do they not?

They don't, and that's the problem.

 

[sbailey4]

I don't see this going far. Even if Apple released a tool to correct the issue, I'm sure there was some clause in the excessively long TOS that excluded Apple from any liability from iMessage.

I agree. Add to that the fact that iMessage is an internal (apple to apple device) system, I suspect there are no written guarantees that those messages would be forwarded as external messages if one were to leave the system. Same deal as BBM the old BlackBerry message system, it was only between BB devices in the past and would never forward as SMS if you no longer used a BB device.

 

[Rogifan]

Did Steve and Scott not think about this when iMessage was first created? I'm really surprised it took this long to provide a solution. Unless the fix is a lot more complicated than any of us think?

 

[reilogix]

Half-baked iMessage deserves a Class-Action Lawsuit

iMessage is great when it works, but it was half-baked and Apple can't take responsibility in a timely manner. Samsung? HTC? Verizon? AT&T? T-Mobile? NOBODY ELSE broke simple text messaging--APPLE DID THAT. Having experienced the issue firsthand, escalating multiple trouble tickets through Apple Support, I can tell you that this issue was a pain in the a*s. Hopefully Apple developers will TEST and DEVELOP a little more thoroughly in the future--but I doubt it. That's just not the corporate culture in Cupertino anymore. Was it ever?

 

[oneMadRssn]

Damages will likely be mostly punitive, and justifiably so.

There are rarely, if ever, punitive damages in a contracts case, which is what this is partly. The plaintiff will need to show actual damages to proceed, which I doubt she will be able to do. As for the other part on interference with her contract with ATT, she will need to prove specific intent (meaning, Apple's object was to interfere with an ATT contract when they made these actions), which I doubt she can do as well.

If this doesn't settle first, my prediction is Apple will win on summary judgement at the close of discovery.

As for class action - we haven't seen how they want to define the class, but I doubt they will find a definition that is suitably broad without being over-inclusive. For example, it can't be every person who had an iphone and then switched to android - that is simply too over-inclusive. For this reason, I doubt it will be certified as a class action as well.