Class-action charges Apple, AT&T with unlawful business practices - Page 2

This is the most important part of what you said.


That would be supporting unlocked phones, which Apple has told you not to do in the first place.

I am not sure if you all remember the law the Feds pass about class action law suites, once the claim damages go over a certian amount and the parties involved cross state boundards these case will automaticaly heard at the Fed level not state courts. Also with the recent Supreme court class action cases which have been going in the favor of the companies verses the individuals I doubt these cases will be found in the favor of the individual special if the courts think these are lawyer driven lawsuites verse individuals.

Our Fed courts are more about personal responsible than they are against big business. They most like will see this more about individuals needing to take responsibility for their own actions and not make the company responsible for what they did.

I was once told by a corporate lawyer for a company I worked for "if your not being sued by someone for something then you not pushing the boundaries of your business and you playing it too safe and conservatiive" it was an interesting comment coming from a lawyer since lawyers tend to be conservative most of the time.

As somone pointed out here, it will be interesting to see how this all settles out since it is obvious it is not clear to anyone what can and can not be done. Also, it would have been foolish to think that Apple did not think most of this threw ahead of time.

And if they do it once, they gots to do it forever more...

Well, I am not a lawyer (IANAL) but from my reading of things both parties are perfectly within their rights to basically do whatever they like. If you buy an iPhone then yes, it's yours, and you're not doing anything illegal by hacking it to unlock it (ie. you're not in violation of the DMCA, even though on the surface you might appear to be) but conversely, Apple and AT&T are perfectly within their rights to try and stop you.

Just because you're allowed to try and unlock a phone doesn't mean the supplier isn't allowed to sell a phone and firmware that makes that difficult. As long as it's clearly described what you can and cannot do with the product when you buy it (or if you apply a particular update) then caveat emptor.

Imagine I sell a new line of MP3 players that comes with its own headphones that use a square headphone jack instead of a round one, with a great big warning sticker on it saying the contacts will be irreperably damaged if you try to plug in round ones. If you do manage to knock together some sort of adapter that successfully lets you plug in your round jack headphones then good luck to you, but that doesn't mean I the manufacturer am legally obliged to provide round headphone sockets just because some users might prefer it that way.

If you don't like square headphone sockets then don't buy my player, and don't complain if you tried to force in the round ones and broke the connector in the process!

-Rolf

That is 100% correct

Wrong! They have an exclusive contract with AT&T and have an obligation to honor the contract they have signed with AT&T.
Now, if you want all of the upcoming features for the iPhone (Mind you they are free do to the fact you are recieving them after the sale of the phone and the 2 year contract with AT&T), then you will have to use the iPhone on both Apple and AT&T terms period.

It is only if you consider they are the only ones that produce the iPhone.
However this is inaccurate based on the industry.
As with many carriers you can choose between candy bar phones up to smart phones so the monopolistic moniker holds no grounds.

Once again you are 100% correct.
Once again the point is if you do not use AT&T and use the iPhone in a manner in which not recommened by the mfg (Apple) then you take sole responsibility for the warranty becoming invalidated or void.
At which time if you down load the iPhone update, after being fair warned of the possible implications to the hardware (Brick) or no longer useable with other carriers, then the warranty is void period.

Actually all the lawsuits are keeping the iPhone more in the public eye then even Apple's commercials.

My home town paper has had at least three, I think, write ups regarding the various suits and I've seen some of these lawsuits on cable news networks.

Now it might be bad for business if any one of these lawsuits were of a legitamate claim like iPhone manufactured using 'child sweatshop labor' or iPhone's is not environmentally friendly or iPhone may overheat and create a fire hazard.

Instead, when a iPhone lawsuit creeps out, it's about "locked to AT&T", "battery sealed", "unapproved 3rd party software no longer works", "hacked iPhone SIM is bricked", "phone costs less", "I can't resell for more money", etc. When one looks at it from that point of view they can only walk away thinking those lawsuits are brought on by a bunch of, rightly or wrongly, 'whiners' and 'greedy bastard' types. It's extremely comical and makes one question our legal system.

Not that it rises to the level of making a lawsuit valid, nor that it obviates the fact that anyone trying to unlock an iPhone should know they're taking a risk for which Apple can't be held liable, there's a separate issue of whether any lock should be there in the first place. The lock is a deliberately anti-competitive business practice. The legal question is whether it's anti-competitive in a way that violates existing laws. It probably isn't. But I hope it is, or at least that laws are changed so such practices become illegal.

There's also the issue of whether "bricking" is deliberate or not. Most people seem to think it isn't deliberate on Apple's part. A few people have a very aggressive "F*ck you if you f*cked with your f*cking iPhone you f*cking ungrateful EULA-violating bastard!", and seem passionately favor deliberate bricking, wanting and hoping that Apple would do, and will continue to do, such a thing deliberately.

And then there's the issue of whether bricking should even be possible. It seems to me to be very bad design when any mere software change can completely cripple a device beyond the user's ability to do a complete reset of some sort. Just to protect their own interests in case one of their own software bugs comes along someday and bites Apple in the ass some day -- massive recalls are never good PR -- there should always, always be a way that any ordinary user, without the use of specialized hardware or software, can reset an iPhone, iPod, or whatever, to it's "factory new" condition, without having to rely on warrantied or unwarrantied repair service of any kind.

In my opinion the last two paragraphs have nothing to do with the validity of a lawsuit, by the way. They're just general comments on the atmosphere in which the lawsuit is taking place.

A lovely phrase which basically means I have no evidence, I don't have a clue as to what the truth is, but by alleging wrongdoing "on information and belief" and filing a really solid common counts cause of action, I'll overcome the summary judgment motion, enabling me to go on a fishing expedition of a lifetime as my lawyer seeks to settle rather than litigate.

What an absolute crock! As a shareholder of Apple, I think it's time for Apple shareholders to band together and file a lawsuit against John and Jane Does 1-10,000 (with a strong common counts clause) to recover damages caused by frivolous lawsuits that are dragging the price of Apple's stock down for no valid reason. As shareholders, we pay for this bullshit on the bottom line because litigation is expensive and hits the company's bottom line.

It's time to fight back! Let them know that if their case has no merit, we'll add each and every co-plaintiff to our lawsuit and seek damages against them if the stock suffers because these idiots don't read the newspapers, software licensing agreements, cell phone contracts or anything else that's put in front of them.

One final point, I along with hundreds of thousands drooled at the prospect of an iphone at Macworld San Francisco. It's October and I still don't have one because of PRE RELEASE publicity on my local TV and in the newspapers (let alone in Macworld and MAclife) which informed me the phone was 2G and the battery was soldered to the board, among other things.

It's increasingly clear that the "bricked" iPhones were a result of:

A sect of hackers that has split from the iPhone Dev Team and claims
that AnySIM and iUnlock both had critical flaws that led to the bricking
of hacked iPhones during the update to 1.1.1. They place the blame on
poorly written hacks by the iPhone Dev Team and have splintered off into
their own "elite" team.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/...have_an_ibrick.
html

So it wasn't Apple after all, (as everyone already knew) it was the
hackers that screwed up their own hack!!!

so funny!

Well, this part is definitely junk:


What about enabling the WiFi Music Store? That sounds like a pretty valid reason for the 1.1.1 update. I'm sure Apple is not crying any tears over the fact that some of those that hacked their iPhones got bricked -- that may have been just a bonus. However, claiming that Apple "solely" targeted those folks is patently absurd and may threaten the future of the case.

I'd like to know what AT&T's role in all this is. They have a history of egregious anti-consumer behavior and I wouldn't be surprised that they drove a lot of this "bricking" effort. I've always thought Apple's deal with AT&T was a Faustian bargain, and I think suits like this may help Apple regain its independence.

In any case, I would think that it would be good PR if Apple Stores were equipped to restore phones back to their original new-in-the-box condition, and they would help iPhone owners "no questions asked." I bet they'd sell tons of stuff to the people who are waiting the 10-15 minutes it would take to restore the phone back to the factory condition.

Ok, as a non-iphone user, can someone clarify for me...

The iPod touch is at its core, a non-phone iphone. You can restore an iPod by clicking "restore" in iTunes, yet you can't do that with iPhone? I've had to restore my iPod Video a couple times just from it crashing from normal use, and the iPhone seems quite a bit more complex than a simple mp3 player, yet there's no way to restore it if something crashes?

I, personally, am sick of these lawsuits. The people are just acting like parasites, why don't they come up with an idea, and develop it and do the same thing? They can't.

To initiate the iTunes connection between devices it's necessary to establish some sort of mutually agreed upon communication method - the devices have to know the other is there, they have to "handshake", etc.

I'd guess that the bricked phones are unable to do that, possibly because their communication abllty has been modified..

Without supporting documents like Apple 's inner-company emails directing programmers to intentionally brick iPhones, that have have been hacked, they will never prove intent.

Yes, there's a Restore button in iTunes for iPhones, just like for iPods.

Is the Restore button there for hacked iPhones? No idea. Is Apple responsible for providing a Restore button for hacked iPhones. I believe the answer is a resounding NO. And quite frankly, doing so would be a support nightmare.

Apple sells iPhones and everyone knows they have an exclusive deal w/ AT&T. I'm betting there were specific clauses in that contract to have Apple take 'reasonable measures' to protect this exclusivity. This is akin to Apple protecting music you purchase from iTunes. They are required, by contract with the music companies, to take 'reasonable measures' to protect the purchased music.

Is this monopolistic? Hardly. As others have said, you may own the hardware, but Apple owns the software and has every right to deny support of modified software. Can you imagine any other software developer being asked to support modified versions of their software? That idea is simply laughable.

Can't believe all the griping here. It's a phone, for goodness sakes. A PHONE!

Harlin!

I agree that there are a lot of frivolous lawsuits. If someone were actually suing Apple for damages due to hacking, that would be frivolous. Think that Apple might be engaging in an unlawful practice, why possibly still without merit, isn't quite so frivolous.

But you titled your response "On information and belief", and then said "A lovely phrase which basically means I have no evidence".

Exactly what evidence could you possibly provide that Apple stock was reduced in value by a specific amount, by a specific cause? Could you offer anything more substantial than your belief that a particular lawsuit hurt the price? Could you do anything more than make wild guesses at how much exactly the price had suffered?

I'm afraid you're suggesting fighting a frivolous lawsuit with yet another frivolous lawsuit.

NOT having a user-accessible way to reset a device is the real "support nightmare". You never knows when your own bugs might cause an unforeseen lock-up condition, perhaps even on a mass scale. You most definitely DO NOT want to risk a massive recall if something like that happens.

As long as the reset method you provide is difficult enough to avoid triggering accidentally (things like holding two buttons pressed for so many seconds, only with the device plugged into external power) the support problem of people doing resets when maybe they shouldn't have is nowhere near so bad as to be worth giving up good bailout technique that might someday save you from having to issue a mass recall notice.

What's the downside of resetting an iPhone, after all? In most cases all you'd need to do is plug the phone back into your computer and everything (except perhaps a few contacts or whatnot you'd entered directly into the phone since your last sync) will be restored and as good as new a short time afterwards.

I just want to point out that everyone is focusing on Apple and the iPhone but not on companies that have been locking phones to their networks for years. If you buy a phone, LG Chocolate (it's exclusive to Verizon) for example, you can not get that phone unlocked no mater how much you beg and plead (not that it would work on any other network but Sprints, i.e. CDMA). Not to say anything about hacking it to get it to run an alternative browser like Opera, doing that you would not be able to get Verizon to support any problems you had with that phone. When you buy a phone and agree to the terms you know what your getting into, the big reason for all this griping and throwing tantrums is because these people suddenly can't sell the hottest phone in the gray market. If there truly was a law that was enforceable about unlocking the phones for use on other networks, Sprint and Verizion would be the first on the hit list.

The people who would take most advantage (possibly many, many times each) would be
unsuccessful hackers. What exactly do you think they would buy from the Apple store
on their tenth visit to have a botched hack reversed? Is good PR in the hacker community
more valuable than the bad PR created in the Apple shareholder community that would
be created by incurring this type of ongoing, open-ended expense (those Apple store
employees get paid, remember)? Also, while the Apple employee is unbricking the iphone
of a failed hacker, he/she is not helping a new customer or an existing customer who
has not done anything to void their warranty.

But there is a user accessible way to reset the entire phone EXCEPT SIM UNLOCKING. Hold the Home and Power buttons for about 10 sec and then release the Power button while holding the Home button and you get a full restore (well not quite because it doesn't remove all files it doesn't know about) but this works fine as long as you haven't hacked the SIM in these strange ways.

This seems like a very reasonable solution to me.

Windows has a monopoly. MS was trying to leverage that monopoly to help WMP.

Neither apple nor ATT has a monopoly in phones or phone service, so they have no power to force anyone to do anything.

I'm not sure what the point of that comparison is, it's just more evidence that you haven't the foggiest idea what a monopoly really is.

Agreed--- the following from Wikipedia:

Monopoly power alone, without some act of wrongful exclusion or other legally cognizable anticompetitive conduct, is not prohibited. To the contrary, as the respected jurist Learned Hand noted, "[t]he successful competitor, having been urged to compete, must not be turned on when he wins."[6] U.S. antitrust law thus does not attack monopoly power obtained through "superior skill, foresight and industry."[7]

The use of the word "monopoly" has for the most part here, been an abuse of the word. Ignorance is bliss but is darn hard to argue against.

It's a business practice intended to help apple and ATT, but that doesn't make it "anti-competitive" (a term with a specific definition) or illegal.

Bundling things together, such as a phone and phone service, is legal as long as the products are related (they are) and it's not a monopoly (it's not).

Hoping it's illegal doesn't make it illegal. They're offering a product with terms, and you want to get the product and set your own terms. Sorry, it doesn't work like that, and pretending it's illegal doesn't help. If you don't like the terms, just buy a different phone.

I really, really wish people would stop repeating the "if you don't like it, don't buy it" mantra as if that answers everything. It's a tiring, sadly predictable, and simpleminded way of boiling complex issues down casual toss-off aphorisms.

And if you don't like what I just said, please refrain from predictably transforming the above into a cartoonish, exaggerated parody of itself and then arguing against that straw man. Is that so much to ask for? I'd greatly appreciate it if for once someone on the internet could manage a nuanced disagreement with a nuanced position.

Just couldn't resist. As they say good for the goose, good for the gander. Also, changing one cartoon into another is just too easy.

I'll stop saying don't like it don't buy it, if you'll stop dragging discussions of Apple and iPhone into discussions of 'telcom bad'. Almost all of the Apple/iPhone discussions on this issue are really about the state of wireless in the US and has NOTHING to do with Apple/iPhone. The 'don't like/don't buy' statement is the right answer to most of these discussions because there are so many choices. You want an unlocked phone, go buy it. You want to rant about locking of phones, go to another forum. Almost all of the issues here are not Apple's and can't be fixed by Apple and the iPhone.

These are discussion forums. People discuss related and tangential issues all the time -- that's what makes them interesting. It's not like we've wandered off into recipes for pancakes or Martian terraforming techniques.

The title of the thread is "Class-action charges Apple, AT&T with unlawful business practices". You can't discuss that very well without getting into the reasons -- good or bad -- that lead someone to file a suit like that in the first place. That's going to lead to a discussion of Apple's business practices, including possibly negative opinions of practices which are nevertheless still within the law. It's going to lead to discussion of the Telco industry as a whole.

Further, I think what I'm saying is a lot more nuanced that "telcom bad". Perhaps telcom is basically good, but has just gotten in with a bad crowd.

To say that a company (Apple) which had 0% of market could be characterized as being "monopolistic" within the market space in releasing their initial entry into the market is simply not credible. I find it odd also the number of phones which only work on one network that only Apple is essentially being sued for restricting choice. Very odd.

You are right. Just a thought though. Is the user obligated to run updates on the phone for it to continue to work. If Apple warned people that these updates might disable the phone, are not these people agreeing to the risk when the run the update?

I don't disagree but then I just think you need to put up woth the 'don't like don't buy' response.

There are always going to be people that can't be pleased, but I think the law suits brought up against Apple in this case are different. There are many people I know who refused to go back to AT&T and I did not want to myself. I had Cingular for many years and the customer service was horrible in my experience. On the other hand, I have all Mac computers and have been waiting for the iPhone for over a year before it was officially announced. I was crushed to learn I was going to be forced back to Cingular just so I could use it. I can unlock any phone manufactured from every manufacture out there and it is perfectly fine. Why should the iPhone be any different? Second, why shouldn't I be able to make my own ringtones out of songs I own. What if I make the song myself with garage band? What if I have my own band? Do I have to have Apple start selling my songs in order to use them as a ringtone? I think Apple's stance on this is wrong and not in the best interest of the customer. I understand that Apple has to please the record giants, but enough is enough. I am with Apple on basically everything except their position with the iPhone.

Ok-- I think Apple has NO obligation to unbrick a phone BUT I would agree that for 100-200 bucks that they should. It should NOT be free as the f***ers who bricked their phones did so in a thumb-nosing act. It was certainly not through righteous necessity. I think Apple's employees need to be instructed to send the phone in for repair just as would happen when the phone is out of warranty. Not fixing the phone is unacceptable. But free??? Never-- that smacks all the people who play by the rules in the face.

Then you have to accept there would not be an iPhone. Simple as that. You may want, and wish and demand but the fact is the rules are Apple's and ATT's. If you don't like them, don't buy the iPhone but I detest your supporting the breakdown of the system that got it to those of us who are grateful for it.

There is no harm in wanting unless its coming to fruition is harmful. Apple and ATT have done you NO harm... I ask you do them and me, none. I like my iPhone and do not want to see the system that got it here undermined. Thank you for butting out.

Hey-- buy a Nokia, a Moto, a Samsung, a Sony-Ericksson. Mmmm, that makes me ponder the word MONOPOLY!!!!

Well, you certainly haven't. You posit the idea that no one should make a certain statement, thus making it impossible to respond to that statement. Talk about a check mate!!

Indeed, the don't buy it if you don't like it position is absolutely valid. We are NOT talking about a lifesaving ONE OFF medication here. Apple is a minority entrant into a vast market. It cannot by any definition be seen as a monopoly.

What we have, in these discussions, is a group of people acting very immaturely, not cognizant of the market that Apple decided to get into- a hostile one, by the way- and in their ignorance and selfishness, are touting their wants and needs as more important than the health of this fledgling venture.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for someone on another carrier who would like the iPhone but can't have it. Or, who would like to add 3rd party apps but can't. Or, who wants to resell it at a profit overseas. Or, whatever... The fact is, the rules of engagement are straightforward. And whatever position you are in, is what it is. Tough luck if you have Verizon and can't have an iPhone. Don't worry as it will happen one day.

Would I like a Bentley for 10,000 bucks?? You bet. Why can't I put a Ferrari engine in my VW?

Whine, whine, let me slash my wrists!!!

PS-- why is there no similar outrage for the Blackberries and other devices that can't be used unlocked on the day of purchase on all carriers??? Hey!!! Hey!!!

Actually, Apple will be recording the unique IDs of the phones that are getting reset. After, say, the second time, the Apple Store employee ought to half-jokingly say something like, "Let's not do this again!' and get more prickly with further resets (maybe cutting them off after more than a few.)

If you can't see how far off those analogies are, there's no hope for you.


Why would anyone have been talking about Blackberries very much at AppleInsider until Apple had a product in the same general category?

All this "whining" as you call it is suddenly in these forums not because Apple is being singled out as a particularly egregious example of problems with cell phones, cellular service, and the terms of cellular service contracts, but because now Apple is a part of all of that, and it wasn't before.

A lot of the passion generated over problems with the iPhone is probably because it's such a good phone in many ways. That makes it all the more frustrating when the iPhone comes bundled with unsavory terms or artificially imposed limitations.

Has a company ever been sued before for CLOSING security breaches?

Missing from all this is the technical details of the kind of hacking required to "unlock" and "open" the phone. Before iPhone these were called "exploits" and were supposedly a bad thing.

Whatever happened to voting as consumers by not purchasing and communicating with a company as to what you want?

Oh yeah, no money for lawyers in that.

This is no way to make iPhone into a platform.

I happen to be reading a book on the history of Commodore. A funny story is about the C64 compatibility mode of the C128. Like many machines of the time (including the Apple II), programmers got VERY creative using the hardware. And that prevented the manufacturer from ever improving the damned thing. In one case, a popular C64 cartridge would not run on a proto C128 because it was dependent on the EXACT screen font bits. Move the dot in the 'i' up a pixel, and things broke!

If you want 3rd party apps, what you want is for Apple to take its time and develop and robust, secure and forward-looking api, sdk, and OS. All reports on the internals of the 1.0 iPhone are that the internals were not ready for 3rd parties. Being OSX based, it has the POTENTIAL to be robust and secure. But 1.0 wasn't there yet. If Apple had left it open, we'd be reading about nothing but security exploits... and unlike the old Security Bitchwatch, these exploits would be real.

Software, security, platforms, robust APIs are A LOT OF WORK. An order of magnitude more than just establishing interfaces to new hardware for internal use that you can change in the future.

If you want a platform--trust me--you want it done right.

Ooops. This was an article about lawyers. A leachfest.

If Apple did exactly what they say they want, they'd be suing over the lack of security.

I am embarrased to be an American with this legal system.

Boy you really do not know what you are talking about do you. If I remember correctly, Steve Jobs did not accept the back dated option. The SEC basically cleared him and Apple of any charges, and may I suggest you go back to Steve Ballmer and tell him you would like to buy a new Zune please. :-)

Apple stock has been going up and up and up. And analysis are now saying it could clear 200 $ by early 2008, if not earlier. Yep, Steve is bad for Apple. :-)


E.N. still laughing at that one. LOL

The problem with the argument "..you don't have to buy it" is that it totally trumps the "the big bad mega-mogul-baddies took my lunch money" argument.

People just don't want to hear stuff that blows their arguments out of the water.

This isn't true at all. Every mobile phone company in the US attempts to lock you into their service and give you little freedom to take your phone to another carrier. The vast majority of phones purchased are locked in various ways to the carrier that sold it. There aren't any phones you can unlock and move from AT&T to Verizon. Or from T Mobile to Sprint.

Right, the argument is meant to center around how Apple has done them so wrong by locking the iPhone to AT&T independent of the fact that there are many many mobile phone choices other than AT&T or the iPhone.