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

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

I'm waiting for the class action lawsuit against Apple for AppleCare repairing Macs, and not flashing a serial # on the logic board, thus making Facetime inoperable along with other MacOS features. Apple Stores refuse to FIX this problem because many of the machines, like 2009/10 Macs are considered obsolete. Apple stores have repair disks to fix this issue, but they won't touch those affected machines. Trying to do it myself has proved unsuccessful, so I've never been able to use Facetime on my Mac Pro.

Suggestions?

 

[5105973]

As others have pointed out: the upgrade to iOS 7 was free. If Apple forced me to upgrade... who cares? The only people with a legitimate grievance might be the guys with EOL devices that couldn't be upgraded to iOS 7.

My concern is that Apple created a BUG. CREATED a BUG.

Bugs are bad. No CONSUMER wants to deal with bugs. We want our stuff to "just work". What did Apple do?

They made our stuff not work.

Bad Apple!

Why did they create a bug when most vendors try to stomp them out?

To keep more money to themselves

... and not have to keep paying Akamai so that FaceTime would keep working for people on older devices running older iOS 6 while Apple found a way to move on from that technology in iOS 7.

There could have been a more upfront honest way of going about this but it probably would not have gone over well with customers or Akamai. So they went the sneaky route. I can't comment on the legality of it because I'm not qualified.

But knowing how devious Apple can be by having this set out in front of my face, I'm going to be suspicious if iOS upgrades make my stuff run like utter crap when it's barely a year old.

 

[rudigern]

Wouldn't it have been simpler to just renew the certificate? Or do they not work the way https certificates do?

I believe it was on the device, the only way to update it would be with a software upgrade however iOS 7 was already out. You didn't have to install it but it was loaded on the phone. The software would not be programmed to realise there was a new version of it's current software that could be installed rather than the newer software of 7. iOS 7 did drop the 3GS but that had been unsupported for I believe mid way through iOS6 so upgrading probably wasn't cared about.

 

[precogincog]

Uhm, were that many people using it? I work with a lot of apple folks for video conferencing. Are people required to support their products indefinitely?

 

[5105973]

But they provided a software update for all devices that weren't eligible for iOS 7.

Did they? Can you point me to which paragraph that's in? I can't seem to make heads or tails of that. But I've been battling a head cold all day.

Anyway if they did that, what was the point of the bug that broke FT? The article makes it seem the bug was intentional. Gah, so confused now.

 

[lolkthxbai]

I don't understand the VPN lawsuit part of the story. Because if they were being accused of violating a VPN patent for a technology that connected FaceTime calls, then wouldn't you expect Apple to use a different method and make the old method no longer work until the trial is over?

 

[common zen se]

As others have pointed out: the upgrade to iOS 7 was free. If Apple forced me to upgrade... who cares? The only people with a legitimate grievance might be the guys with EOL devices that couldn't be upgraded to iOS 7.

Not that I agree with the law suit, but your reasoning is hindsight. You are ignoring what users were experiencing at the time when allegedly the software was tinkered with to cause frustration from inoperability with the intent to drive OS upgrades which in turn encourage hardware upgrades. The majority of users will share some sentiment to this thought as they probably have made like experiences. It is a form of "planned obsolescence" which in one way or another has affected us since the concept was implemented to drive turnover and revenue. It is not just Apple doing that, it is only Apple's fault that they have become extremely aggressive at doing so in just several years' time. And it all happened when Apple began to throw new OSs versions at their users for free.

 

[x130844]

For security reasons alone, one can not expect that a machine/device with an OS stay the same for ever with no updates. Servers change, protocols change, services change, everything change, The thing is, if a protocol changes, the company is responsible to ensure that it will still work, via updates, which they did. If she didn't update, (bug or no bug introduced), her FaceTime wouldn't work anyway. Support for a product is not unlimited. I don't see how a lawsuit here is reasonable.

 

[d5aqoëp]

yes, Apple made billions selling ios7...O wait, iOS upgrades are free.
We all pay the price for these frivolous lawsuits...it must end.

Well the self proclaimed lawyers at TheVerge in article here make the lamest attempt to justify the whole patent trolls scenario. While Nilay calls for fixing, no solution is provided.

So this trolling is going to keep on going till patent validity expires or Trump wakes up one fine day and decides to ban patenting.

 

[Altis]

As others have pointed out: the upgrade to iOS 7 was free. If Apple forced me to upgrade... who cares? The only people with a legitimate grievance might be the guys with EOL devices that couldn't be upgraded to iOS 7.

I do care if Apple forces me to update my device and the new software makes my device far worse off, which is precisely what iOS 7.0 did.

For the entire half of a year before 7.1 came out, iOS 7.0 was abysmally slow and buggy. 7.1 improved things but nowhere near to where 6 was.

I don't expect Apple to support the older OS much, but having completely irreversible updates can really burn people.

I did manage to get iOS 6 back on my 4S and the thing runs every bit as well as my iPhone 6 on iOS 9/10, and is even faster at navigating the OS.

I maintain that the iPhone 5 on iOS 6 is the fastest iPhone experience to date.

 

[Nermal]

Did they? Can you point me to which paragraph that's in? I can't seem to make heads or tails of that.

It's not mentioned in this article, but iOS 6.1.6 restored FaceTime support. I can't find the original news thread for it though!

Edit: Here it is; it's just a footnote on the 7.0.6 release article and doesn't go into specifics.
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/21/apple-ios-706/

Edit 2: As pointed out below, "restored" isn't the best word. It was released before FaceTime broke, which is why the linked article doesn't mention it - most people didn't know that it was going to break

 

[oldmacs]

[doublepost=1486097258][/doublepost]What about the 4th generation iPod touch that couldn't update to iOS 7? FaceTime just stopped working on them?

Apple released iOS 6.1.6 for the Touch 4 iirc.

They should have released 6.1.6 for all iOS 6 devices as an option.

 

[jwm]

I'm waiting for the class action lawsuit against Apple for AppleCare repairing Macs, and not flashing a serial # on the logic board, thus making Facetime inoperable along with other MacOS features. Apple Stores refuse to FIX this problem because many of the machines, like 2009/10 Macs are considered obsolete. Apple stores have repair disks to fix this issue, but they won't touch those affected machines. Trying to do it myself has proved unsuccessful, so I've never been able to use Facetime on my Mac Pro.

Suggestions?

Upgrade

 

[Urban Joe]

Apple is just doing what they do. This type of thing is in their DNA.

 

[dannyyankou]

The real issue is that some devices can't update past iOS 6, so those users can't use FaceTime.

Unless 6.1.6 fixed it, which I can't find any proof on.

 

[buckwheet]

oh... my... holy.... crap... it's a COMPANY... COMPANIES EXIST TO MAKE MONEY. They can "break" whatever they want, whenever they want. This is just unbelievably pathetic...

 

[logicstudiouser]

Personally not a facetime user, but can understand why she might be upset.
If you are primarily just using an iPhone for music, browser and communication, iOS 6 performance is way better than iOS 7-10. imo. I have an iPhone 5 with iOS 6 and it sails so smoothly on iOS 6 and the music app is not butchered as it is now.

 

[johannnn]

Absolutely pathetic - penny pinching taking way too to far. Doesn't surprise me though.

Why should they have to support old OS, especially something as old as iOS6? Just update the damn phone.

 

[CaTOAGU]

So what is the problem here? Apple doesn't charge for upgrades. They also stop supporting older software.

As others have pointed out: the upgrade to iOS 7 was free. If Apple forced me to upgrade... who cares? The only people with a legitimate grievance might be the guys with EOL devices that couldn't be upgraded to iOS 7.

I don't think there'd be any EOL issues either, FaceTime was introduced with the iPhone 4 and that could run iOS 7. There'd possibly be an issue if there was a productivity app you relied on that couldn't run on iOS 7. I'm still not sure Apple would have done anything wrong though.

 

[JamesPDX]

Ah yes, nostalgia is a powerful thing. I miss those faux glossy icons.

It's all faux. It's a screen.

 

[calzon65]

I've always hated Apple's heavy handed approach to IOS upgrades and their inflexibility in supporting a downgrade, especially if you happen to find a significant problem months after you upgraded.

I'm in that position now. I'm running IOS 10.2.1, yes I love IOS 10, but even after more than half dozen subsequent releases of 10 following first released, I still have Bluetooth integration problems with my car. If I could go back to IOS 9 while I wait for a fix, that would be great but Apple (the Apple stores and Apple support) refuse to support a downgrade.

 

[SgtPepper12]

Kind of off topic, but does anybody else experience the following: Whenever I use FaceTime on my mac (which happens to be quite often), and use internet services from Apple (Spotlight, Safari's search bar, notification bar) FaceTime will immediately start to stutter heavily and eventually go "Poor Connection" for a few seconds. It happen every single time and it is extremely annoying.

Anyway, I've said this before, but FaceTime is kind of broken to me and triggers the weirdest bugs on my mac and on my iPhone (often simultaneously).

 

[MH01]

At least this is a case that has evidence. I'm very much aware of the Akamai service , and the costs would be quite significant if one talks about iPhone users. It's sad that apple created a bug (evidence) to save costs.

When the Akamai solution was looked at, apple would have known the cost per GB for traffic and how much traffic they had, so it would not have been a shock, this is just a sign of the penny pinching under Cook. This is not a bug, it was direct action taken to reduce costs. And apple was too tight to implement the same method as used in iOS 7. Welcome to Cooks apple, money first .

 

[Kroo]

If this person took the time to read the Apple ALA when you agree to any software update, be it iOS 6 or onward, you will find Apple can change, alter and remove functionality as they feel. So if this person WAS running iOS 6, they have no case whatsoever. All companies do this, in essence, you don't own the OS of any company software, you merely hire it. Microsoft have won many law suits by merely pointing to the legal agreements users agreed to when they installed the OS. Time for people to grow up and move on. First world issues being brought before a court are laughable.

 

[MH01]

I've always hated Apple's heavy handed approach to IOS upgrades and their inflexibility in supporting a downgrade, especially if you happen to find a significant problem months after you upgraded.

I'm in that position now. I'm running IOS 10.2.1, yes I love IOS 10, but even after more than half dozen subsequent releases of 10 following first released, I still have Bluetooth integration problems with my car. If I could go back to IOS 9 while I wait for a fix, that would be great but Apple (the Apple stores and Apple support) refuse to support a downgrade.

Completely agree, I'm on iOS 9 with my iPad Pro, and the daily pop up is pathetic , and poor user experience