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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."
I just can't wait for OfCOM to get their hands on Apple when the iPhone launches in the UK. I know I will be the first to complete a complaints for to them on the day of the release.
If you modify an embedded system in a non-vendor approved way and then install a vendor update and the update brakes cause you did something incompatible.... Then it's your fault, not the vendors...
While i agree that Apple should be forced to sell unlocked phones, modifying a product in a non-approved way DOES invalidate your waranty. Why should the vendor be held reliable if YOU break his software?
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
... and this will settle the matter once and for all.
I mean when you have to buy numerous formats of a song because you are not allowed to pirate what you buy, to yourself for use on another device.... then of course At&T iphone lockin is acceptable.... If you want to use a different carrier you need to use a different format/device.
Anticompetitive practices is the only thing to argue here, but if you bring in a bunch of other non-issues then you can make the case lose.
Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware.
Honestly, Apple has not attempted to deceive anyone on this issue, and they make it clear that service is with AT&T only. If you don't want to be locked-in with AT&T, then don't buy an iPhone. Period. If you still must absolutely have a class-action lawsuit, then do it against the Steve Jobs backdating accounting scandal.
This lawsuit is just absurd.
OK, so I'm with everyone else hoping that before long the practice of locking phones to specific networks gets outlawed, but in this particular case, Apple haven't done anything wrong.
They are only responsible for providing updates which work with their software as supplied, and not software and iPhones which have been hacked specifically against Apple's advice, to get them working on other networks.
If your phone gets bricked by an Apple update after you've unlocked it, then it's entirely you fault. No-one else's. You did something that you knew full well at the time you shouldn't have done, and let's face it, it's not a simple process, so there can be no possible claim that you didn't know the consequences of your actions, and if you didn't understand this process and the implications, then you're even more of a fool for doing it. You've learned valuable lesson here - don't mess with things you don't understand. You immediately voided your warranty, again something you were fully aware that you'd be doing, and began using it in a way it was never intended or designed to be used, so you're not entitled to support. And now you've came out of it looking like a cock. With no phone. You bloody idiot.
Is it? I think the current situation is as follows:
Do Apple users think they're different than everyone else? I guess that question is silly - of course they do ('think different' and all that). Well, looking at it now, perhaps this is more organized by the lawyer (does he use Apple products?) than the Apple users directly. I understand their frustration, but suing to have the phone unlocked from AT&T? OK, perhaps this will be a 'fight the good fight' and perhaps they'll actually win. Perhaps this is the only group that feels this passionately about the subject. But why not sue Blackberry for only allowing the Curve 8830 on the TMobile network? I want an 8830, but on AT&T. Should I buy it, sign up for TMobile, then sue RIM? Or TMobile? Or both? I guess I don't quite understand the notion of throwing these other extraneous issues in to the suit, unless they're hoping for *something* to stick.
creation science book
I really see no true difference between using your iPhone (with a carrier OF YOUR CHOICE) and hooking your landline (with a carrier OF YOUR CHOICE) through your computer's modem so you can use a software phone and answering machine. Also, how is it any different from using your laptop with a cellular card (with a carrier OF YOUR CHOICE) to get internet connectivity on the go?
To my layman eyes, the law in this area seems ad hoc and gives special attention to handheld cellular devices. Fortunately, it seems likely that unlocking is legal. I seriously hope this case will be the first of many to push regulation of companies that maliciously sabotage their customers after they bought the product to maximize profit.
I'm currently a very satisfied Mac user (I'm writing this post from a 3 year old PowerBook G4 17" that still runs like a spotted assed ape) but these sorts of moves sour me on AAPL. I'll give them a few chances to mess up and be forgiven, but as a computer savvy person who's primary love of Apple is for how they've beautifully wrapped what's under the hood, I can just as easily go right back to Linux where I came from. After all, that's what I use on the desktop and in the server rack already. Why is it, just when Microsoft seems to have shot itself in the foot with Vista and controlling what users do with their hardware, that Apple jumps right of the cliff with them?
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.
You moron.
I'm not an Apple fanboy. I don't own any Apple products, but I do know software and embedded development rather well (after 20+ years experience) and I also like to think I have sensible and objective opinions on matters like this. Something you obviously don't.
Oh, and stop swearing, it makes you come across as borderline illiterate and definitely someone in their early teens with a lot to learn about the world.
You believe that Apple's actions are OK, and maybe they are in the US. But that won't fly in Europe.
The GSM standard expressly provides for cross-vendor compatibility through simple SIM change, and unlocking of locked phones is entirely legal in most if not all European countries. In fact, it's a substantial business to provide unlocking services, and to sell ready-unlocked phones.
That doesn't mean that it's free (a cellphone service provider will charge you for unlocking, since it carries the risk for them that you might defect to a competitor if their service is bad). But it does mean that unlocking is supported.
If the accepted and legal position in the US is that providers are allowed to deny GSM service mobility by not offering unlocking and by bricking unlocked phones on purpose (allegedly), then those providers are about to face problems when they try to do the same thing in European jurisdictions.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
If the software in the phone is in an unknown state, then don't allow the upgrade to run.
Apple obviously wanted to brick the phones. Just about every other upgrade i've ever run checks the bits it's upgrading to make sure it's good to go.
Wasn't it announced *ahead of time* that the upgrade would brick unlocked phones?
That sure sounds like premeditation to me.
Nah, that sounds more like them taking into account that if you do some unsupported random modification, then there is no way for them to know what you did. And if they don't know what you did, how is the testing process going to know what to test for? Private APIs are always going to be changing, since they don't need to take into account third-party applications are using them and if they are they shouldn't be.
If you hack something then you should accept the risks associated with it. Yes I believe Apple should be making the iPhone more open, but until it is anything you do which is not officially supported is at your own risk.
BTW Haven't a number of people come up with solutions to unbrick the iPhone?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Warnings were given multiple times. Apple release a press release, posted a warning before your computer downloads the new software and then posted an aditional and seperate warning (completely seperate from the EULA) before you could CHOOSE to install the software.
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.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I got bored and one site recommended filing a FCC complaint so I did, saying that they wouldn't unlock my phones after 90 days of service like their other phones.
I got a call from the office of the president for AT&T. Unfortunately I was downstairs celebrating my daughters birthday so haven't been able to talk to them to see what happens, but I was pretty dang surprised.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
What is now becoming clear is that many unlocked phones come through the upgrade unbricked, albeit re-locked. Considering that recognizing an unlocked phone should be a simple matter of a checksum, it seems clear that Apple was not intentionally "bricking" phones. There are reasons to believe that this is likely an unintended side effect of an update designed primarily to enhance iPhone security. If it was not intentional, Apple is in the clear, as they are under no legal obligation to debug an update to work with phones that have been modified in violation of warranty. And indeed, it seems that while Apple is under no legal obligation to do so, Apple sotres are restoring "bricked" iPhones. Moreover, it is not as if Apple failed to warn owners of unlocked iPhones that applying the update would likely harm their phones.
I'm intrigued. If you wanted no bells and whistles, why did you go with Three as a network? When I was last shopping for a phone, they seemed to be all about the bells and whistles (although not, sadly, any of the actually useful ones, like reasonably priced data).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I got a Razr V3i a couple of years ago, unlocked, from eBay cheaper than I could get a locked one from my cell phone company. You just have to look around, rather than buying the cheapest or easiest thing you see.
There are services that can sometimes recover or replace that bit of hardware for you, and sometimes the manufacturer might even offer to replace it, but they are under no legal obligation to do so, as you have voided your warranty.
It is not Apple's obligation to examine the state of your phone before applying an update. As long as the update is functional with the device as it is intended and anticipated, they're in the clear. If you use it outside its intended purposes and with no warranty of fitness claim, your warranty is void.
Even within the context of Magnuson-Moss, disclaimers are permissable of exactly this nature. The "third party refusal" section is posted out of context as an excerpt of a product liability warranty, not of a hybridized warranty including all service arrangements (where service tying is permitted, with a few common law exceptions).
Not to mention, Apple had alread committed (and wisely so) to using the WORLD-standard GSM. Their negotiations with Verizon hint that they may have had a phone circuit in development that was compatible with their antiquated cellphone network (remember, we don't make phone calls over EV-DO). So the question that is begged is: Are there ANY phones in the U.S. that CAN be used with EVERY carrier, from a practical, technical sense? Because of some of the fundamental differences (still) in frequencies, modulation techniques, packet structures, et frickin' CETERA, can someone actually design a phone that doesn't look like this that would satisfy the requirement to be TRULY "Unlocked".
An "unlocked" phone is fine in EUrope and other places where GSM is nearly ubiquitous; but in the U.S., it's not as happy of a situation. But even in EUrope, if a carrier doesn't want to mess with the infrastructure changes necessary to implement visual voicemail, all the "unlocking" will NOT bring that feature back.
Period.