Lawsuit Alleges Apple Broke FaceTime on iOS 6 to Force iOS 7 Upgrades, Save Money

[Radon87000]

This lawsuit is just stupid. What damages did this "Christina Grace" suffered? Did you had to invest in new iOS? Oh wait the upgrade is for free!! Cant be that then

She saved Apple's costs on FaceTime by being forced to upgrade . Indirectly that's a form of payment by her

I can't speak for home PC's, because what I run on my computers at home is not taxing, but a 2 year old computer at my work is barely acceptable performance wise, and an 7-8 year old one could not run the software I need to use. I program logic controllers and HMI's (Human Machine Interfaces) for industrial production machines and customers want the newer features that only very recent software has. A 4 year old computer might as well have Windows 3.1 loaded on it and a Pentium processor for all the good it would do me.

Depends on how you treat the PC. If I give my PC to my mom she will turn it into a pile of crap in a year with the various toolbars, crap programs, free security softwares etc. However if you maintain it properly it can run just as fast as the day you bought it. My XPS 8100 from 2009 is just the way I bought it even on Windows 10.

Also the CPU market has pretty much stalled since 2011 thanks to AMD. We are basically at the point of maturity so that even 7 year old processors are just a couple of seconds slower than 2017 kaby lake

 

[I7guy]

Its been almost 12 years . Realistically you cant expect someone to support an OS forever. And they didn't force you to do anything, The option to downgrade to XP was always with you

realistically vendors decide on their support cycles. Ios6 was past its prime and Apple pulled the plug. According to the Eula they had every right. The courts will decide the veracity of the Eula.

And why would I even downgrade a production server to an unsupported environment.

It will take years before anything is decided and then there are appeals .....

Yes it will.

 

[5105973]

Well, yes and no. 'Deprecate' is more often used in programming, and discussing features of a programming language, or API set.

Maybe my use of the word wasn't the best, but the example was appropriate. Apple doesn't have to support *every feature* of *every OS* in perpetuity. Imagine the mess... And, yes, why would anyone upgrade from System 7, if it were still supported. Some wouldn't really need it at all, yet others would want more features, but that's a bad analogy, taken to extreme.

Apple did it for cost, and it was money they felt they shouldn't have to spend. Were they wrong to do it? Hmm... If you broke up with a girlfriend/boyfriend, and you were paying for their cable, would you want to keep paying for that cable, months after breaking up? Would they, or should they, be able to sue you to keep paying for their cable? Hmm...

I'm not sure your analogy holds because if I were to have to stop paying for someone's utilities after a breakup, I'd tell them upfront as a matter of honesty and courtesy rather than hack into their service and sabotage it to make it stop working and hope they shrug, say "My cable doesn't work anymore, so I'm going to drop cable service and go with dish network instead". That could go all kinds of wrong in unpredictable ways. And is probably illegal.

Honestly I've only ever commingled finances and living arrangements with a spouse so I can't even wrap my head around the scenario you presented. I have no clue of the legal aspects of your scenario or what that ex might actually be entitled to under the law, so I can only guess that I would just say straight out, "Dude, pay your own bills, I'm outta here." The two exes I've had from my short dating days past age 18 parted ways on great terms from me and I can't imagine treating them disrespectfully. One still has a mutual friend in common with me.

How that translates to business...I don't necessarily think it has to. Business ethics and my personal ethics are completely different animals. But I wonder why Apple just didn't prepare to terminate their agreements with Akamai, following whatever legal constraints they were bound to. And then be upfront and inform customers that FaceTime was no longer going to be supported on devices running older versions of iOS because of new developments in their system. Or whatever the correct terms are. You'd know better than I would, what the proper wording should be for the customers.

But like I said, I don't know anything about the law so I wasn't even going to touch any of the legal issues or comment on whether anyone has a leg to stand on in court. I thought I avoided that part of it but maybe I wasn't clear. I'm just talking about ethics and how Apple's business practices in that instance can hurt their public perception. Specifically, their introducing a bug to break a feature so that customers would stop using the version of IOS and FaceTime that relied on Akamai.

I don't think any of us expects Apple to support every feature of every OS in perpetuity. I think we just expect them to be more upfront about what they are culling. And I think with that FT exception, which they seemed to have learned from, they are. I think they figured out it is more trouble than it's worth to break their own stuff and better to just be upfront about culling it. Their competitors drop features and services all the time so people are used to that, more or less. It's not something customers like, but it's honest. Slipping bugs into our stuff so that it breaks unexpectedly just hurts trust and hurts the image Tim is trying to promote of Apple as a socially conscious entity. In my opinion. It is just an opinion and as I freely admit not an overly informed opinion at that. I'm here to learn. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about this.
[doublepost=1486360070][/doublepost]

I was originally affected by this debacle with my iOS 6.1.3 4S. The day I found out about it I was enraged! I would not update my phone just for this feature and, instead waited for the 6.x update to fix the facetime certificate for my archaic iPod Touch 4th gen. I always enjoyed the iOS 6 UI over the more modern one. Looking at it always put a smile on my face and, even though it was older, more outdated, and had some issues, I always preferred it.

I loved the old UI so much, I pounced on the oppertunity to create iOS 6 inspired shortcuts on my school loaned 7.1.2 iPad Air. I would have been able to do full replacements if I was allowed to jailbreak it !

View attachment 687131

Ironically, to this day on my archaic iPod Touch 4th gen, Facetime still works. Even more curiously, I wonder what's the fix going to be if this case successfully wins.

Wow, I forgot how beautiful the icons used to be. They're so flat now. I liked it for awhile but I would love to go back to the old look to switch things up a bit.

 

[C DM]

Forcing users to upgrade their device by gimping the old OS is not sinister ?

The reality of it being done allegedly because of Apple wanting to move away from a different FaceTime implementation that they no longer wanted to support is not as sinister as the spin on that to theorize a much more complex and sinister conspiracy that it was more to force people to update to something that supposedly essentially destroys their devices and forces them to purchase new ones. Quite basic and down to earth realistic logic involved there.

 

[kdarling]

So my wife's iPhone 5, which was 4 years old when IOS 10 was released last fall, can't be running version 10 ...

Arrgh. No, apparently this line got lost during last second editing on my ipad mini:

Recently they dropped the "two years" part, and now the period is unspecified, though the accounting method remains.

(That's why the prior part about two years was written in past tense.)

Good catch, thanks!

Apple did it for cost, and it was money they felt they shouldn't have to spend.

As noted, Apple includes up to $25 per device in the price for paying for the code, updates to the code, and related services (e.g. maps). This is accounted for as revenue over multiple years, which allows them to do the updates without later charging again.

Note that there's nothing stopping Apple from making updates compatible back even further and charging for them... except probably an unwillingness from ios users to pay, a desire from Apple for people to buy newer hardware, and of course if the older hardware can't do it.

 

[I7guy]

Arrgh. No, apparently this line got lost during last second editing on my ipad mini:

Recently they dropped the "two years" part, and now the period is unspecified, though the accounting method remains.

(That's why the prior part about two years was written in past tense.)

Good catch, thanks!



As noted, Apple includes up to $25 per device in the price for paying for the code, updates to the code, and related services (e.g. maps). This is accounted for as revenue over multiple years, which allows them to do the updates without later charging again.

Note that there's nothing stopping Apple from making updates compatible back even further and charging for them... except probably an unwillingness from ios users to pay, and a desire from Apple for people to buy newer hardware.

Reminds me of the is BMW maintenance free? Well technically you pay for it but can't buy a car without it, unless your BMW is given to you then it's free. But Apples support is best in class, imo, and I don't buy a product by reviewing the financial statements first. But I bought my family iPhones so to them upgrades are free, I paid for them...

Tl;dr as a consumer they come with the device since there is no option to reduce the price of the device and opt out of upgrades. And today it seems to be 5 years of support. So yes upgrades in short are free.

 

[Radon87000]

The reality of it being done allegedly because of Apple wanting to move away from a different FaceTime implementation that they no longer wanted to support is not as sinister as the spin on that to theorize a much more complex and sinister conspiracy that it was more to force people to update to something that supposedly essentially destroys their devices and forces them to purchase new ones. Quite basic and down to earth realistic logic involved there.

Not a spin.It actually happened.Facetime implementation was costing Apple money on iOS 6.Hence they changed it in iOS 7 but users who didnt want their device slowed down stayed on iOS 6. In addition to costing money these customers werent getting any incentive to update their device. Hence a bug was introduced as a nudge to get people to update. No more fees and as a bonus, more sales. Win-win

The internal ops imply it

"The lawsuit later points to an internal Apple email chain in which an engineering manager mentions that they were looking at the Akamai contract for the upcoming year and understood that Apple "did something" to reduce usage of Akamai's services. Another engineer responded by pointing out iOS 6 leaned a lot on Akamai's services and that Apple "broke iOS 6" and the only way to fix FaceTime was to upgrade to iOS 7."

This is not unlike how Microsoft was aggressively downloading Windows 10 in the background to get users to upgrade into the Windows as a service model as Windows 10 adoption ratings were abysmal without it

 

[kdarling]

Tl;dr as a consumer they come with the device since there is no option to reduce the price of the device and opt out of upgrades. And today it seems to be 5 years of support. So yes upgrades in short are free.

Nope. Appearing to be free, and actually being free, are totally different things.

It's just like someone thinking that the price of their new iPhone is only $200, because it appears that way if they don't take the time to account for where the rest comes from.

Consumers pay ahead of time for updates. Apple doesn't do free updates, nor should they.

 

[I7guy]

Not a spin.It actually happened.Facetime implementation was costing Apple money on iOS 6.Hence they changed it in iOS 7 but users who didnt want their device slowed down stayed on iOS 6. In addition to costing money these customers werent getting any incentive to update their device. Hence a bug was introduced as a nudge to get people to update. No more fees and as a bonus, more sales. Win-win

The internal ops imply it

"The lawsuit later points to an internal Apple email chain in which an engineering manager mentions that they were looking at the Akamai contract for the upcoming year and understood that Apple "did something" to reduce usage of Akamai's services. Another engineer responded by pointing out iOS 6 leaned a lot on Akamai's services and that Apple "broke iOS 6" and the only way to fix FaceTime was to upgrade to iOS 7."

This is not unlike how Microsoft was aggressively downloading Windows 10 in the background to get users to upgrade into the Windows as a service model as Windows 10 adoption ratings were abysmal without it

Imply is not the same as prove, which is what will have to happen in court for the plaintiffs to win. The poster will hopefully will be around when the verdict is rendered to see who was right and who was wrong.

 

[Radon87000]

Imply is not the same as prove, which is what will have to happen in court for the plaintiffs to win. The poster will hopefully will be around when the verdict is rendered to see who was right and who was wrong.

Circumstantial evidence is considered in courts

 

[I7guy]

Nope. Appearing to be free, and actually being free, are totally different things.

It's just like someone thinking that the price of their new iPhone is only $200, because they don't take the time to account for where the rest comes from.

Consumers pay ahead of time for updates. Apple doesn't do free updates, nor should they.

You can't opt out or reduce the cost of your phone by promising not to upgrade. The appearance of free equals free since I have no option to reduce the cost of my device by promising not to use their free services. [see above BMW maintenance analogy]
[doublepost=1486385579][/doublepost]

Circumstantial evidence is considered in courts

And can be thrown out.

 

[Radon87000]

You can't opt out or reduce the cost of your phone by promising not to upgrade. The appearance of free equals free since I have no option to reduce the cost of my device by promising not to use their free services. [see above BMW maintenance analogy]
[doublepost=1486385579][/doublepost]
And can be thrown out.

Chances of which are less because factually Facetime doesnt work on iOS 6

 

[kdarling]

You can't opt out or reduce the cost of your phone by promising not to upgrade. The appearance of free equals free since I have no option to reduce the cost of my device by promising not to use their free services.

You can't opt out or reduce the cost of your phone with a subsidy either, even though it looks like you did.

The appearance of free does not equal free, no matter how the consumer sees it.

The costs of future updates and services are paid for by the consumer upfront. That's why they're available "free of charge" to those consumers later on. SOX accounting requires it. Cold hard fact. The end.

It's when they're not accounted for in the device revenue, that we get charged later for updates. Remember that WiFi "n" update that Apple had to charge $5 for? Or the iPod touch $20 update? That's because they had already claimed all the device revenue.

 

[Radon87000]

You can't opt out or reduce the cost of your phone by promising not to upgrade. The appearance of free equals free since I have no option to reduce the cost of my device by promising not to use their free services. [see above BMW maintenance analogy]
[doublepost=1486385579][/doublepost]
And can be thrown out.

You actually did pay for it. In the financial statements revenue is allocated between the hardware sales and service contracts

 

[Wondercow]

The internal ops imply it

"The lawsuit later points to an internal Apple email chain in which an engineering manager mentions that they were looking at the Akamai contract for the upcoming year and understood that Apple "did something" to reduce usage of Akamai's services. Another engineer responded by pointing out iOS 6 leaned a lot on Akamai's services and that Apple "broke iOS 6" and the only way to fix FaceTime was to upgrade to iOS 7."

Just like smacrumon, you're reading into what is actually written. The internal documents, at least from what is presented here, don't imply anything of the sort; they say "did something" and "broke iOS 6" in relation to something we don't know. Everything else is from the person's lawsuit or the author.

We have a total of five words from an email chain, and they aren't "we broke iOS on purpose".

 

[I7guy]

You actually did pay for it. In the financial statements revenue is allocated between the hardware sales and service contracts

You still can't opt out or reduce the price of the phone if you "promise" not to avail yourself of that service. Therefore the appearance of free is free.
[doublepost=1486390449][/doublepost]

You can't opt out or reduce the cost of your phone with a subsidy either, even though it looks like you did.

The appearance of free does not equal free, no matter how the consumer sees it.

The costs of future updates and services are paid for by the consumer upfront. That's why they're available "free of charge" to those consumers later on. SOX accounting requires it. Cold hard fact. The end.

It's when they're not accounted for in the device revenue, that we get charged later for updates. Remember that WiFi "n" update that Apple had to charge $5 for? Or the iPod touch $20 update? That's because they had already claimed all the device revenue.

With a subsidy I have been paying the same rate for 10 years whether I update the phone or not. If I keep a phone for 5 years my monthly bill does not change as if I keep a phone for 2 years and then upgrade. For the right to upgrade every two years for $100 I pay vzw $x dollars a mi th.

That I can't negotiate the price of a phone therefore all givebacks in the form of support and warranty are free after the purchase. Using my BMW maintenance example nobody is deluded into thinking BMW is giving you the maintenance it's included in the price, but you can't opt out. Period. the end.

And if this has any bearing on the case we will come to find out.
[doublepost=1486390502][/doublepost]

Chances of which are less because factually Facetime doesnt work on iOS 6

But one doesn't know how this will play out, does one?

 

[C DM]

Not a spin.It actually happened.Facetime implementation was costing Apple money on iOS 6.Hence they changed it in iOS 7 but users who didnt want their device slowed down stayed on iOS 6. In addition to costing money these customers werent getting any incentive to update their device. Hence a bug was introduced as a nudge to get people to update. No more fees and as a bonus, more sales. Win-win

The internal ops imply it

"The lawsuit later points to an internal Apple email chain in which an engineering manager mentions that they were looking at the Akamai contract for the upcoming year and understood that Apple "did something" to reduce usage of Akamai's services. Another engineer responded by pointing out iOS 6 leaned a lot on Akamai's services and that Apple "broke iOS 6" and the only way to fix FaceTime was to upgrade to iOS 7."

This is not unlike how Microsoft was aggressively downloading Windows 10 in the background to get users to upgrade into the Windows as a service model as Windows 10 adoption ratings were abysmal without it

All that alleged is the part I mentioned about reducing the users that use the FaceTime implementation that Apple doesn't want people to use. The part about it being done to ultimately make their devices supposedly useless so that they would purchase new ones from Apple is the spin on that alleged part to make the conspiracy even more sinister and complex than the more straightforward and realistic one just relating to FaceTime usage.
[doublepost=1486392037][/doublepost]

Just like smacrumon, you're reading into what is actually written. The internal documents, at least from what is presented here, don't imply anything of the sort; they say "did something" and "broke iOS 6" in relation to something we don't know. Everything else is from the person's lawsuit or the author.

We have a total of five words from an email chain, and they aren't "we broke iOS on purpose".

And realistically speaking if the allegations hold up and it's more or less that they "broke iOS on purpose" or basically one service in iOS, the bigger part is that based on the allegations is that they did it to get people to stop using that particular version of the service, not necessarily that they did it to get people to update to another version of iOS that would then make their devices "unusable" which would then lead those people to upgrade to new devices because of that (and that being the actual true sinister and rather complex plan that relies on many more variables).

 

[kdarling]

You still can't opt out or reduce the price of the phone if you "promise" not to avail yourself of that service. Therefore the appearance of free is free.

All that means is that you didn't take advantage of the Apple services which you already paid into a pool for, not that they were ever free.

It's like paying taxes. Even if you never use all government services, you still paid for them.

Side note: Apple uses a percentage of an average Estimated Selling Price (ESP) to figure out how much to allocate per device for future updates and services. Apple says they use that ESP because they say they don't know exactly what retailers charge end users. Not that surprising, but interesting to know.

And if this has any bearing on the case we will come to find out.

It might not. Doesn't matter:

This info was intended for those who claim that people should not complain about an update breaking an app, since the update was "free". (As if that would excuse breaking an app.)

Joking now: on the contrary, some people might feel they should complain that they didn't get ENOUGH updates or services for the ~$25 they paid per device . I never use Apple Maps, for instance. Man, I want a $10 refund just for that .

 

[I7guy]

All that means is that you didn't take advantage of the Apple services which you already paid into a pool for, not that they were ever free.

It's like paying taxes. Even if you never use all government services, you still paid for them.

Side note: Apple uses a percentage of an average Estimated Selling Price (ESP) to figure out how much to allocate per device for future updates and services. Apple says they use that ESP because they say they don't know exactly what retailers charge end users. Not that surprising, but interesting to know.



It might not. Doesn't matter:

This info was intended for those who claim that people should not complain about an update breaking an app, since the update was "free". (As if that would excuse breaking an app.)

Joking now: on the contrary, some people might feel they should complain that they didn't get ENOUGH updates or services for the ~$25 they paid per device . I never use Apple Maps, for instance. Man, I want a $10 refund just for that .

The price is the price. How a company breaks down its product revenue is irrelevant to I would think most consumers. (Think BMW free maintenance; which BMW says is included) your phone comes with 5 years of support, how it looks on the balance is irrelevant to me the consumer relevant to me the shareholder.

Since I dont have to pay extra, nor can I reduce the price if I don't want this service, this service is included or free beyond the retail price.

 

[kdarling]

Since I dont have to pay extra, nor can I reduce the price if I don't want this service, this service is included or free beyond the retail price.

Now you got it

It's included. Not free.

Free would mean that we did not pay anything towards it. But we did.

 

[I7guy]

Now you got it

It's included. Not free.

Free would mean that we did not pay anything towards it. But we did.

Like BMW free maintenance. So if I buy a phone and gift it, the recipient is getting upgrades for free; correct? Let's face it nobody gives anything for free, the CEO of 501c3 not for profit corp still gets paid a salary. But in this case $0 is paid above the retail price; hence included for free.

 

[whyc]

Apple didn't want people to upgrade their certificate nor did they want the certificate to auto upgrade. If I'm understanding what I read correctly, they intentionally set the certificate to expire. They created a bug to accomplish that. But their solution to the bug was to suggest an iOS upgrade. Because correct me if I'm wrong, but FaceTime is tied to the OS and upgrades to the iOS are how FaceTime is itself upgraded.

Upgrading to iOS 7 in turn lets them slip in the new peer to peer connectivity that would free them from using Akamai and paying fees to Akamai.

So they broke a feature of FaceTime to push an upgrade to iOS 7 that lets them keep more money and give none to Akamai.

In the long run this is bad for consumers because the consumer can't stay on older versions of iOS that work better for older devices. Not if they wanted to use FaceTime in that particular instance.

So the consumer ends up possibly having to pay to upgrade hardware they might have otherwise held onto for another year. And even though iOS upgrades are free, the hardware sure isn't. I think this is the crux of the consumer complaint.

And Akamai might have their own bone to pick with Apple.

It's a bit shady.

I love the way you write. I became a 'member' just to like your comments.

 

[Radon87000]

Like BMW free maintenance. So if I buy a phone and gift it, the recipient is getting upgrades for free; correct? Let's face it nobody gives anything for free, the CEO of 501c3 not for profit corp still gets paid a salary. But in this case $0 is paid above the retail price; hence included for free.

The retail price included it. This isn't so hard to understand.Thats like saying if I sell an 32GB iPhone for a 1000 bucks and bundle the Watch with it , the Watch came free

 

[I7guy]

The retail price included it. This isn't so hard to understand.Thats like saying if I sell an 32GB iPhone for a 1000 bucks and bundle the Watch with it , the Watch came free

Of course, you don't have to pay extra for updates, as in free as in beer. Can't opt out anyway. Just like you can't opt out of 3 year bumper to bumper when you buy a car. The warranty is part of the cost of doing business and charging the customer for it. But the customer still doesn't have to pay as free as in beer.

 

[oliversl]

Why is that? Wasn't there an option for an iOS upgrade that would get FaceTime working?

iPod 4 and iPhone 5 on iOS6