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Lawsuit Claims Apple Forced Users To iOS 7 By Breaking FaceTime (appleinsider.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the inconvenient-truth dept.

According to Apple Insider, a class-action lawsuit has been filed in California that claims Apple broke FaceTime in iOS 6 to force users to upgrade to iOS 7. The lawsuit says Apple forced users to upgrade so it could avoid payments on a data deal with Akamai. From the report: When FaceTime launched in 2010, Apple included two methods of connecting one iPhone to another. The first, a peer-to-peer technology, transferred audio and video data over a direct connection, while a second "relay method" used third-party servers run by Akamai to shuttle data back and forth. Initially, calls routed through Akamai's relay servers only accounted for only 5 to 10 percent of FaceTime traffic, but usage quickly spiked. On Nov. 7, 2012, a jury found Apple's peer-to-peer FaceTime call technology in infringement of patents owned by VirnetX. Along with a $368 million fine, the ruling meant Apple would have to shift away from peer-to-peer to avoid further infringement. Apple began to incur multi-million dollar monthly charges from Akamai as a result of the change. Testimony from the 2016 VirnetX retrial pegged relay fees at about $50 million between April 2013 and September 2013, rates that according to today's lawsuit were of concern to Apple executives. After eating rising relay service charges for nearly a year, Apple saw a chance to slow down or completely negate the fees in iOS 7. Among other system improvements, the next-generation OS included a method of creating peer-to-peer FaceTime connections without infringing on VirnetX patents. The only problem, according to the lawsuit, was that users continued to operate devices running iOS 6. Citing internal emails and sworn testimony from the VirnetX trial, the lawsuit alleges Apple devised a plan to "break" FaceTime on iOS 6 or earlier by causing a vital digital certificate to prematurely expire. Apple supposedly implemented the "FaceTime Break" on April 16, 2014, then blamed the sudden incompatibility on a bug, the lawsuit claims.

16 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. But don't worry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple would never do anything to force you to upgrade your iOS version, right?

    They just pull shit like this as often as they can. My new favourite one is them forcing iOS 9 on iPhone 4S users when they need a new battery- if you take the device into the service centre, you're getting upgraded whether you want it or not. Enjoy your new slow ass phone with a replaced battery.

    When people say "Apple doesn't force you to upgrade", it's pure bullshit. Sooner or later they'll fuck you somehow. Either with their complete and utter lack of backwards compatibility (just wait until 64-bit iOS builds become mandatory and they flush all the 32-bit arm compilers down the drain), or at the service centre, or with shenanigans like this.

    Remember folks, Apple isn't in the business of making hardware worth upgrading to. They're in the business of planned obsolescence. That's how they keep the ball rolling these days.

    1. Re: But don't worry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Really?

      I accidentally upgraded my 4S to iOS 9.

      I can no longer multitask. If I switch between applications, it takes 5-10 seconds for the new application to relaunch and reload whatever state it was in before it got terminated in the background. I've gone from being able to have 5-6 Safari tabs open and none of them actively reloading, to only 1-2. It takes at least an additional 45 seconds for my phone to boot, and even the stock applications like Phone or Mail are noticeably slower.

      What performance improvements are you speaking of, exactly? The same phone was at least usable under iOS 7 (which was nowhere near as fast as iOS 6). Now it is not. I'd downgrade if I could (and then I'd have zero complaints), but that's off the table with the way they're encrypting and signing everything. Hell, they could even let you downgrade and just say "You're invalidating your warranty by doing this, are you sure you want to continue?" and I'd click YES because the phone is already out of warranty. But I guess iPhones aren't built to last longer than Applecare these days, so it's my fault for holding onto an otherwise perfectly functional device (that is, until I installed iOS 9).

    2. Re: But don't worry... by windwalkr · · Score: 3, Informative

      That's a stupid lie. Apple improves the performance of older devices by upgrading the OS.

      Yeah, no. If you were talking about Macs, I'd totally agree. But this has never been the case on iOS. You buy a new device, you get 1-2 major iOS upgrades which actually make things better without substantially hurting performance, then (typically around the 3 year mark) you'll get another upgrade which completely destroys performance. And once you've patched and found out that you've made a mistake, Apple doesn't let you go backwards.

      I'm a long-time Apple fan (since the Apple //e). I've used iPhones exclusively since they came onto the market. I acknowledge that Apple is better than a lot of the competition wrt/ releasing software updates for older hardware. But it's definitely true that Apple has a habit of releasing patches which .. let's be politic here.. strongly encourage users of old devices to upgrade their hardware.

    3. Re: But don't worry... by jbolden · · Score: 2

      iPhone 4S = 2011
      iOS 8 = 2014
      In 2014 expected life for a phone given the subsidy model was 20-24 mo.

    4. Re: But don't worry... by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

      And by "At no charge," you mean "At a charge which was already factored into the purchase price." You paid for your free upgrades when you bought your phone, and people's concern here is for Apple intentionally making older devices unusable with a forced OS update, thereby also forcing a new phone purchase which includes the cost of another round of phone updates. Rinse, repeat until the user finally wises up and stops buying Apple crap. Sadly, most never do so.

      Really?

      Then Samsung must REALLY be gouging; since the GN7 was actually MORE EXPENSIVE than an iPhone 7 Plus, and that's with essentially NO Upgrades, and with the Purchase Price theoretically subsidized in part by Carrier Bloatware deals, right?

  2. This lawsuit is pretty silly by ZorinLynx · · Score: 5, Informative

    All devices capable of FaceTime supported iOS 7. Apple didn't leave any devices behind when they did this.

    Not only that, but a company cannot be expected to support unnecessary legacy infrastructure forever.

    1. Re:This lawsuit is pretty silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No but to break it artificially is a different story

    2. Re:This lawsuit is pretty silly by windwalkr · · Score: 2, Informative

      All devices capable of FaceTime supported iOS 7.

      That really depends on your definition of "support". Apple has an unfortunate habit of releasing an operating system update that technically supports older devices, but in practice brings them to their knees- operations which previously were quite snappy become unbearably sluggish, or cause the device to crash. Obviously it's great that they offer the option for those who need to upgrade for App compatibility or some other reason, but for everybody else it just feels like a forced (in the sense that the older OS version will stop receiving important updates as per this article) upgrade to something which cripples the device, requiring the purchase of a new device.

    3. Re:This lawsuit is pretty silly by sims+2 · · Score: 2

      What? No off hand I know of the ipod touch 4th generation supported facetime but it doesn't go past iOS 6.1.6

      There may even be others IDK.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    4. Re:This lawsuit is pretty silly by sims+2 · · Score: 2

      What is unique to apple is refusing to allow the OS version to be downgraded to one with acceptable performance.

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      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  3. Precedent by thecombatwombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If these people (somehow) win, the precedent could be insane.

    Game consoles do this all the time. You update or lose access to all online services, period. If this lawsuit wins, Sony and Microsoft could both be on the hook in a big way. I'm sure many other devices are similar.

    1. Re:Precedent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Game consoles do this all the time.

      Game consoles do not pretend that the update is optional and they also don't blame a bug when they break something for the old version. Apple on the other hand likes to lie to its customers whenever it does something that could have negative consequences for its public image.

    2. Re:Precedent by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      Sod game consoles, what about Windows 10? Forced upgrqades, no way to downgrade, and upgrades breaking random stuff. Sounds like we'd have a case.

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      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  4. Trolls patented onion routing and p2p in general by ezdiy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.google.com/patents/... is the patent supposedly infringed, and https://search.rpxcorp.com/lit... is the court litigation.

    Basically, both Microsoft and Apple got hit by a patent troll, hard. It sounds like random gibberish of somebody vaguely trying to implement p2p relaying similiar to Tor (and from the looks of it, naively broken and not-anonymous too). With a lot of odd features on top of it which do not make much sense from engineering perspective as well. Possibly put in there just to make the patent as broad as possible. It's basically impossible to explain how this is related to any p2p system, much less facetime, what is clear that the patent is some sort of p2p (among dozens of other things).

    It's worth noting it is explicitly linked to TARP - https://betanews.com/2010/03/1...

    Now, the fun part is that both patents describe routing header encryption, possibly with onion layers (its hard to tell from the gibberish), for both of which there is ton of prior art (onion was patented by darpa in 1998 in fact).

  5. Make apps independent of (i)OS by MavEtJu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Currently the only way to update included apps when you purchase a new phone is via an iOS upgrade.

    As such this whole drama could be prevented by being able to upgrade a single included app via the AppStore instead of via an (i)OS upgrade.

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    bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
  6. But why the deception? by ilsaloving · · Score: 2

    What I don't understand is why Apple even bothered with the deception. All they had to do is say that as a result of previous patent lawsuits, Facetime on ios 6 would be disabled as of yadda yadda date, and anyone who wanted to continue using the technology could move to IOS7.

    Then this whole mess wouldn't have even happened, no?