Judge gives greenlight to class action suit claiming Apple 'broke' FaceTime
A class action lawsuit charging that Apple deliberately "broke" FaceTime on older iPhones can continue, a U.S. District judge has ruled, tossing out an Apple motion to dismiss.
Judge Lucy Koh turned down the motion in a late Friday ruling, according to Reuters, specfically rejecting an Apple argument that the plaintiffs in the case had suffered no financial loss since FaceTime is a free service.
"FaceTime is a 'feature' of the iPhone and thus a component of the iPhone's cost," Koh said in a footnote of her ruling. "Indeed, Apple advertised FaceTime as 'one more thing that makes an iPhone an iPhone.'"
After losing a lawsuit to VirnetX -- which claimed FaceTime was violating patents -- the company began routing calls through Akamai servers, spending $50 million in one six-month period alone. The plaintiffs in the current case charge that Apple disabled FaceTime on devices running iOS 6 or earlier in April 2014, doing so simply because it was able to create a cheaper alternative to Akamai in iOS 7.
At the time, Apple blamed a "bug" linked to an expired certificate, but subsequently revised its support pages to drop references to it. In emails from the VirnetX suit, Apple engineers said they were aware the company "did something in April around iOS 6 to reduce relay utilization," making direct references to Akamai and users having to upgrade to iOS 7 to get FaceTime back.
Most iPhones and iPads were already on iOS 7 by the time FaceTime stopped working with iOS 6, but 11 percent were still on the old OS -- likely because of performance concerns and missing features on older devices.
Judge Lucy Koh turned down the motion in a late Friday ruling, according to Reuters, specfically rejecting an Apple argument that the plaintiffs in the case had suffered no financial loss since FaceTime is a free service.
"FaceTime is a 'feature' of the iPhone and thus a component of the iPhone's cost," Koh said in a footnote of her ruling. "Indeed, Apple advertised FaceTime as 'one more thing that makes an iPhone an iPhone.'"
After losing a lawsuit to VirnetX -- which claimed FaceTime was violating patents -- the company began routing calls through Akamai servers, spending $50 million in one six-month period alone. The plaintiffs in the current case charge that Apple disabled FaceTime on devices running iOS 6 or earlier in April 2014, doing so simply because it was able to create a cheaper alternative to Akamai in iOS 7.
At the time, Apple blamed a "bug" linked to an expired certificate, but subsequently revised its support pages to drop references to it. In emails from the VirnetX suit, Apple engineers said they were aware the company "did something in April around iOS 6 to reduce relay utilization," making direct references to Akamai and users having to upgrade to iOS 7 to get FaceTime back.
Most iPhones and iPads were already on iOS 7 by the time FaceTime stopped working with iOS 6, but 11 percent were still on the old OS -- likely because of performance concerns and missing features on older devices.
Comments
Your implication that people using old hardware are cheap is just foolish. There are many reasons to stick with what works for you.
Good old judge Koh. Lmao!!
I get letters showing I'm part of a class suit all the time. The payouts have been from $0.97 to $145.00. The amount of the settlement is determined in the trial so the amount each member of the class gets is determined by the number of members who accept the terms. By accepting the terms as a class member you don't increase the settlement amount.
Do I think Apple is liable for damages for a class action here? NO. It shouldn't be a class action suit. Am I likely to be a member of the class as an owner of the equipment mentioned in the class? YES Will I accept the payout? YES. Why shouldn't I? If I don't someone else will get a larger share instead. It sounds greedy. Maybe it is. It will help pay for my new iPhone 8 though!
As for your other point, IS iChat's multi-video chat really gone? Or do people just not use it anymore because they've mostly migrated from AIM to iMessage? What about iChat Theater? I think that was fully superseded by AirDrop and AirPlay (well, sort of).