Apple Settles Antennagate Class-Action Lawsuit

An anonymous reader writes "A preliminary settlement has been reached in the class-action lawsuit brought against Apple in June 2010 over the 'Antennagate' fiasco. Ira Rothken, co-lead counsel for the case, says there are 21 million people entitled to either $15 or a free bumper. 'The settlement comes from 18 separate lawsuits that were consolidated into one. All share the claim that Apple was "misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4 — particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software." The settlement has its own Web site, www.iPhone4Settlement.com, which will be up in the coming weeks (the site doesn't go anywhere right now). There, customers will be able to get information about the settlement and how to make a claim. As part of the arrangement, e-mails will also be sent alerting original buyers to the settlement before April 30, 2012. The claims period is then open for 120 days.'"

Comments

Re:Just another class action suit

[jo_ham]

Ask Apple - anyone who wanted could return it for a full refund, including being released from the cellular contract at no cost, if they felt it was not fit for purpose.

Of course, in reality, the antenna was only marginal in signal areas beyond that of the 3GS it replaced, so the majority of people never saw the issue. Antennas are susceptible to detuning; that's physics for you. The 4's antenna was just more susceptible than others (the internal ones) because it had a much better range to begin with, but in areas of very weak signal (where an internal antenna would get zero signal) it was possible to cause the external antenna to drop.

No doubt the design had a flaw, but the hype surrounding it was just ridiculous.

Re:Lawyers rake it in

[StripedCow]

The problem is that it solves the antenna issue, but causes the phone to be the wrong size

Indeed, as a compensation they might as well give everybody a box of matches so they can make smoke-signals for communication. Apple is a lousy company with lousy standards. But hey, what do you expect from a law-firm?