This country is really getting irresponsible. California just passed law allowing use of marijuanas. But can you sue the people of California if your daughter is killed in a car accident and the driver was using marijuanas? I don't think in a democracy you can sue the people.
These cases and generally all class action lawsuits would not exist if in the event of a loss the plaintiff was required to pay the defendant's legal costs. In the case of class action cases the lawyer's would have to be prepared to pay or would have to extract it from those in the class.
Intel designed their processors. ARM designed the ARM processors which Apple bought the rights to tweak. They have since designed their own by tweaking ARM's design to fit their needs better. Their tweaks are extremely unlikely to have changed the part of the chip where these problems are. The chips that Apple designs largely themselves are support chips, not the CPU which is where these design errors happened.
Considering that the design of a modern CPU is considerably more complex than the U.S. Tax Code, it's pretty much a miracle that they work as well as they do. Most people have no idea of the complexities involved in designing a CPU chip or writing an application. What sounds like a simple little change can have totally unintended consequences in all sorts of places you never expected it to. And complete testing is next to impossible.
I once read that if only .001% of the parts in the Saturn V rocket that launched men to the moon failed, that would have been several hundred parts. If you do the match that means there were actually less than a million parts in a Saturn V.
The A11 Bionic CPU in the iPhone X has 4.3 BILLION transistors! The fact that modern CPU chips work as well as they do is amazing. Were you aware that one of Intel's CPU chips had an error that resulted in 2+2 equaling 3.97 or something like that?
I will say that I think Apple needs to provide security fixes for older phones and computers - especially ones that can't run the latest operating systems. To many companies are dropping support for hardware and software that works fine. I don't have an unlimited budget and I can't afford to keep replacing stuff that works fine as long as I don't upgrade something.
Why the computer industry had to follow the example of the fashion industry with this yearly update crap is beyond me. Although I suppose the fault is largely that of the media that demands stuff to report on on a regular basis. :-[
LewK
Don't you have to prove harm? In the case of IOS, that will be very difficult considering the quick patches and the fact the workload that the A chip is under is normally not hit hard by this.
Considering there is NO OPTIONS ON THE MARKET to go around this, what would they have done?
If Apple sat on this for ages, maybe they'd have a point, but this has not been the case.
Only those that have oldish phones on 9.3.5 and before that will not get the patch (unless Apple issues a 9.3.6) may have something to complain about.
I hope Intel gets hit hard with this, but I don't think much will happen with them, they are too big and supported by the US Gov and Israel. I think lawsuits are hedging their bets on easier fry like Apple and ARM and AMD.
Why?
Did Andy Grove once slap your mother or something?
Got something better than the 40+ years of some of the most innovative semiconductor technology ever invented by mankind that you'd like to tell us about?
And apple would not have sold the unit had THEY known the defect. I have though discovered a fix for both of these flaws. By placing your phone in the microwave and turning it on for roughly 3 seconds, the energy is able to affect the chip to a point no hacker will be able to access your device again.
That advice is free for the lawyers in this case only. Everyone else needs to pay me $1 trillion or else they aren't allowed to do it.
For all those out there who think they will get a brand new iMac or iPhone free along with a check for $10,000.00 for their “trouble,” think again. These lawsuits will go down just like all the others have. The lawyers will get millions and you will get an iTunes gift card. For all you trolls out there hoping and praying, “Apple is finally going down,” think again. You’ll wind up looking like the Wicked Witch of the West. “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too.” It ain’t gonna happen. In about two years we’ll read some blurb in the news about Apple settling, admitting no guilt, and you’l get your iTunes gift card for $25. Same goes for Intel and ARM. That’s just how class actions work. If you really have a grudge against Apple then hire a lawyer and file an individual suit. See how far you get with Apple’s legal team.
Doubt it will even be a gift card. Once the lawyer fees are done it will be a check to anyone with an Apple device in roughly the amount of $2.51.
These cases and generally all class action lawsuits would not exist if in the event of a loss the plaintiff was required to pay the defendant's legal costs. In the case of class action cases the lawyer's would have to be prepared to pay or would have to extract it from those in the class.
I've said for years that a lot of these frivolous lawsuits would end if the companies would counter sue when they win. But no corporation wants to be that "big bad bully going after poor America" so they just win and move on to the next schmuck trying to make a buck for nothing.
Why the law firms are becoming so stupid? You can not sue a company if you do not incur any damage. I think US is rapidly degrading into a country being controlled by stupid and irresponsible people,
No kidding- country has lost its civility. Hope court throws it out.
"Plaintiffs would not have purchased the iDevices had they known of the Security Vulnerabilities," write the complainants, offering no suggestions for what they would have purchased otherwise. "Or they would not have paid the prices they paid for the iDevices (in which the Apples Processors were a component) had they known that they would be subject to the Security Vulnerabilities as well as a slowdown in speed and thus decrease in quality and value."
This is utter BS. Any other device they would have bought would have ended them up with the same problem. And they would have paid the prices they paid because that was the price of the device that would have the same issue as any other device out there!
Knowledge is evolving. Nobody in the world knew until now that predictive branching was a security risk. Think of medecine, doctors provide cares acording to the medical knowledge known when the treatment occurred. You can’t sue them 10 years down the road because a better treatment has just been discovered.
The function of predicting instructions was used to speed up processing but has now been discovered as a vulnerability. So they will take away the function and the chip will return to its natural speed without the prediction feature. That is like saying the speed limited on a particular road was 50 mph but was later determined to be unsafe so it was lowered to 40 mph. Better safe than sorry.
Why the law firms are becoming so stupid? You can not sue a company if you do not incur any damage. I think US is rapidly degrading into a country being controlled by stupid and irresponsible people,
Rapidly degrading? Politically, we've been there, big time, for 361 days. On the other hand, commercially, some people don't regard avarice and taking advantage of large targets of opportunity ("deep pockets") as bad things.... nor have they, for a couple of centuries.
Remember all those manufacturers who got caught misrepresenting their devices' speed by cheating on known benchmarking tests in their firmware code? I don't remember seeing a class action against them where a "complaint acknowledges that a patch to [prevent the cheating] will result in a reduction in processing speed for the chip…[so that] the devices it sold and distributed were not of the quality represented and were not fit for their ordinary purposes." Were those companies not making enough money to make it worth the attorney's efforts? Was there a fear of driving more customers toward Apple, when those companies were having enough trouble making a profit already? Attorneys generally follow the money, regardless of the ultimate merit of their case and regardless if consumers are ultimately harmed in the exercise. They get paid either way! http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/27/samsung-galaxy-note-htc-one-caught-cheating-in-benchmarks-again
First off this is total BS! Second it is weird that we hear nothing about Android phone companies being sued for the same problems. Plus the Google, Android and phone hardware companies like Samsung, LG, and others seem to not even be working on a fix or patch. Apple gets crapped on even though they are trying their best to fix the problems. Third if the lawyers are suing Apple and saying that they would not buy their products because they are defective then what in the world would they buy? Because Meltdown and Spectre effect all computers and smartphones. They would have nothing better to choose from and would end up living like it is the 1970s and 80s. The lawyers are not very bright lack total commonsense.
Comments
So since all PC and smartphones have this flaw, the plaintiffs plan on becoming Amish.
Fudge the lawyers.
Considering there is NO OPTIONS ON THE MARKET to go around this, what would they have done?
If Apple sat on this for ages, maybe they'd have a point, but this has not been the case.
Only those that have oldish phones on 9.3.5 and before that will not get the patch (unless Apple issues a 9.3.6) may have something to complain about.
Did Andy Grove once slap your mother or something?
Got something better than the 40+ years of some of the most innovative semiconductor technology ever invented by mankind that you'd like to tell us about?
And there are tons more vulnerabilities.
No chip is perfect.
That advice is free for the lawyers in this case only. Everyone else needs to pay me $1 trillion or else they aren't allowed to do it.
This is utter BS. Any other device they would have bought would have ended them up with the same problem. And they would have paid the prices they paid because that was the price of the device that would have the same issue as any other device out there!