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Apple Sued Over iPhone Bricking
An anonymous reader writes "The week's debate over the iPhone 1.1.1 has finally resulted in legal action. InfoWeek reports that on Friday, California resident Timothy Smith sued Apple in a class-action case in Santa Clara County Superior court. The suit was filed by Damian Fernandez, the lawyer who's been soliciting plaintiffs all week for a case against Apple. The suit doesn't ask for a specific dollar amount, but seeks an injunction against Apple, which prevents it from selling the iPhone with any software lock. It also asks that Apple be enjoined from denying warranty service to users of unlocked iPhone, and from requiring iPhone users to get their phone service through AT&T."
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in other EU countries where unlocking must legally be provided on request, or where it's banned altogether, e.g.:
http://www.unlockiphone.info/2007/07/iphones-in-france-law-says-they-must-be.html
Will Apple be prepared to allow unlocked phones in these countries (presumably leading to a free European market in officially unlocked phones), or will they choose to lose sales and not sell where they can't enforce a lockdown and get the revenue that goes with it?
Apple bricking the phone is not illegal, nor should it be. When Apple sold the phone, they were crystal clear that its only supported use was with AT&T and Apple-approved apps. Those that disagree with the policy should not have bought the phone.
Now, if Apple was suing folks for unlocking the phone, that would have been something else (and certainly brings to the forefront debates on shrinkwrap, reverse engineering rights, etc.) but they have not. The proper response to this bricking is another hack, not a lawsuit.
Apple is also perfectly within their rights to not give warranty service to those that modded their phone. The Magnuson-Moss Act only provides protection to those whose aftermarket bits did not cause the phone to die. If these folks had not modded their phone, the update would not have killed it. The act was meant to protect those that say, bought ordinary aftermarket headphones... automatically denying warranty service for THAT would be a blatant violation of the Act. For folks that would avail themselves of the Act, even a liberal interpretation would mean they would have to prove that Apple's update deliberately disabled the phone. Given how many things that can go wrong with code updates, I would be surprised if Apple simply just did not test on an unlocked phone, and the process just happens to brick the thing. Apple probably bricked many legit phones during their testing process until they got the bugs worked out...
SirWired
I wonder how Apple will sell their iPhone in Europe. It is forbidden by the European consumer laws to sell a phone where you force users to a certain provider. I'm really curious.
Am I the only person who thinks that Apple probably does not mind this lawsuit? Apple doesn't seem like the company who would want to sell service tied to one provider anyway, they would either want to sell devices that work with any provider or provide the service themselves. They were likely forced to lock the phones as a condition of getting on anyone's network, and starting their own network is impossible until more spectrum gets auctioned off. I'll bet that Apple was counting on a reaction like this, and has a provision buried in their contract with AT&T that says if a court forces them to unlock the phones, they can do so without invalidating their access to the network and AT&T can't complain.