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Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit For Shrinking Storage Space In iOS 8

Posted by samzenpus on from the too-much-room dept.

An anonymous reader notes that Apple is being sued over claims that iOS 8 uses too much storage space on the company's devices. "Ever wonder why there never is enough space on your iPhone or iPad? A lawsuit filed this week against Apple Inc. alleges that upgrades to the iOS 8 operating system are to blame, and that the company has misled customers about it. In the legal complaint filed in California, Miami residents Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara accuse Apple of "storage capacity misrepresentations and omissions" relating to Apple's 8 GB and 16GB iPhones, iPads and iPods. Orshan has two iPhone 5 and two iPads while Endara had purchased an iPhone 6. They contend the upgrades to the operating system end up taking up as much as 23 percent of the storage space on their devices."

8 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. MicroSD card? by rossdee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why TF don't Apple have a slot for microSD card ike most smartphones these days.

    Anyway I gave up on Apple in 1988

    1. Re:MicroSD card? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they had an SD card slot why would anyone pay an extra $200 for the large capacity phone?

    2. Re:MicroSD card? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Especially when you can get the same $200 worth storage for $10.

    3. Re:MicroSD card? by NoKaOi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Than how about they add some memory dedicated to the OS? The stuff is not that expensive these days...

      They do. It's part of that 16GB that they advertise. This is how pretty much all devices are advertised. Do laptops and desktops come with a separate disk for the OS? When they advertise the size of the hard drive do they subtract the size of the OS? How about other brands of phones or tablets?

      These people are completely ignorant about what they are suing for, in which case they have no business suing, or are suing just to sue (or because their lawyers are hoping to turn it into a class action suit, settle, and rake in millions while a bunch of people get 50 cents each), in which case they still have no business suing.

    4. Re:MicroSD card? by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft and others were forced to change how they advertise there devices because of complaints of how storage is used by the OS. While I agree this lawsuit is idiotic vendors really should be more forthcoming with information like storage, it isn't an insignificant amount that is taken on devices in this form factor and the average consumer doesn't know that he isn't really getting 8GB for photos and games, it wouldn't hurt there sales to be more open and honest, e.g. Microsoft now puts it directly on there site and even provides a table of how much storage is user available for each device. Would it really kill apple to do the same? currently the only thing apple adds is "1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less."

    5. Re:MicroSD card? by the_B0fh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean like how when Apple purposefully degrades the performance of older iOS devices when a new iOS version is out (that won't run on the older hardware)?

      Help me understand what you just wrote?

      1) Apple purposefully degrades the performance
      2) of older iOS devices
      3) when a new iOS version is out
      4) (that won't run on the older hardware)?

      Are you claiming Apple makes the older iOS that is currently installed on your phone, work slower, when a new version of iOS is released (but not installed on your phone)? If you can prove it, I'm sure the lawyers would love to speak to you.

      If you cannot prove it, I'm sure the psychiatrists would love to speak to you.

  2. Re:Entitlement by ngc5194 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not so easy. What if Apple is adding wasted space to their OS distributions in order to coerce/trick customers into upgrading the older, lower capacity devices? Bear in mind that I don't know that they are, but I think it's certainly okay to pose the question if the larger space required by the newer operating systems is actually being used by new features or not. It may not be illegal for them to do so, but it's certainly morally questionable, and if they're doing this, I'd at least like to know.

  3. Re:Entitlement by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I generally love everything Apple does and makes. That said, they botched iOS 8 from a user perspective. Everyone I know who had a small flash went and deleted all their apps and data first so they could download the update. They needed to tell people that they could do a tethered upgrade and use less space for the upgrade.

    The way they did it reinforces the "upgrades are bad" mentality which is dangerous. Apple can do better.