[mistersquid]

I believe Apple would be smart to settle this suit as quickly as possible. The fact that the advertising campaign for iPhone 3G presents as a feature of the iPhone 2x speeds is crucial point. Advertising specific claims for network speed (an inherently difficult-to-guarantee quantity) is foolish and probably actionable, even in light of the maxim caveat emptor.
The problem is that network throughput is an empirically unstable product which depends on many variables, some of which are not controlled by the vendor.
My best guess is that this suit (once settled or decided) will inaugurate the use of disclaimer text to notify audiences that claims for network speed are not guaranteed.

[dalegattis]

nmpike,

You had 30 days to use the product and if you were not happy with it, to return it! I LOVE my iPhone 3G and it delivers a better experience than the original iPhone. I have watched the same web page load on an iPhone 3G WAY faster than it did on the iPhone.

The ONLY group that a class action lawsuit helps are the attorneys! The plantifs may get a "free" iTunes download when the case gets settled, but the attorneys get MILLIONS of dollars in legal fee!

Dale.

[fletc3her]

Yeah, and my clothes don't get nearly as white as the clothes I see in the Clorox commercials either and try as I might they just do not smell like they've been air dried on a farm in Iowa.

The asterisk says that twice as fast is a comparison of an iPhone on EDGE vs an iPhone on 3G. Of course if you can't get 3G coverage you won't see this speed increase. But then if you don't get any cell phone coverage you won't even be able to place calls.

The ads generally promise speeds "twice as fast" but do add the caveat "3G not available in all areas.". There are some weasel words like "some people" and "helps". To be deceptive I would think that most customers would need to see no benefit from the network and I don't think that's true.

If you buy an iPhone you pay $200 for it and you pay sales tax on that amount. That is the cost of the phone. The service plan is extra. I got a free RAZR a couple years ago. I payed $0 for the phone, I paid no sales tax, the service plan was extra. If you buy a car you pay x dollars for it, but you still need to buy gas, insurance, repairs, etc. Total cost of ownership is important, but is not strictly speaking the same thing as cost.

Anyway, it's not an Apple product launch unless there's a class action lawsuit!

[azeguura]

Apple deserves the right do whatever they want with their product, its up to consumers to decide whether to purchase the product or NOT !!
If you cant deal with the fact that the product is not fast enough then WHY BUY THE DAMN THING?
people just want any possible way of making money from lawsuits.

[SirBrass]

Exactly.



CAVEAT EMPOR, people.

[rab777hp]

This is like that class action suit where all those people sued sony or something for being a fraction of an inch off for tv screens, and won. People need to be more productive with their time. If there was a suit for every ad that said 'twice as fast' or something like that, when it was a bit off, then half the country would be in court, oh wait, it is.

[Wondercow]

JDW said:

You people need to learn how to turn the other cheek and bite your tongue sometimes. Life isn't perfect. You think it is because easy because American sadly gives you the liberty to sue to your heart's content and get some easy cash that way.

While I generally with the above I have to take issue with this:
>And even when someone has truly been wrong and deserve compensation, I still refuse to accept legal avenues as the best course of action. Again, bite your tongue and move on. If you've not guessed it already, I hate legal action and have no respect whatsoever for people who seek to get involved in it!

I was rear-ended on the highway over a year ago. I was stopped due to congestion. The 19-year-old driver behind me was looking at his passenger seat and didn't notice that we were all stopped; he hit me doing 105 KM/h, he didn't even try to stop, hit me full-force. He caused me to spin, and crash into the concrete median. I live in constant pain and my ability to provide for myself has been severely affected: I can't carry anything heavier than about 10 lbs. (5 Kg). Not only does this mean that I can't work it mean that I can't lift my seven-month-old daughter. In fact, I haven't been able, nor medically allowed, to lift her since she was three months old. I will probably never work again and I'll miss out on a lot of special moments in my daughter's life--I can't sit or stand very long and I certainly can't play.

I'm 32 and I permanently walk with a cane. I used to be a handyman at home--I took care of just about everything--I also have a half-acre property: the gardens were my hobby and it takes over two hours just to mow, let-alone trimming, clipping, planting, and all other landscaping. Putting aside "pain and suffering" why shouldn't I be able to sue now that I have to hire someone to perform even the simplest task for me? My yard should become an unkempt jungle because I can't maintain it nor can I afford someone to do it for me? My house should fall apart because I can no longer repair it?

I have no respect at all for the sue-happy civil system of the U.S., but there is a time and a place for civil suits. Why should I have to lose my home because the jerk behind me wasn't paying attention?

[Wondercow]

kirkmc said:

I disagree. Apple is using as a selling point something over which they have no control. Since it's one of their main selling points, they are liable, as it is misleading advertising.

They advertise the phone, not the service. The phone is $200--half the price of the $400 EDGE phone. This is no different than any other mobile phone company: "get the latest XYZ phone for ZERO dollars!" They don't tell you upfront that you only get the phone for free if you sign a multi-year contract for a minimum of $X per month.

[Wondercow]

[quote name='KPO'M']



> [quote name='Wondercow']
> >

kirkmc said:

> > Apple should be held liable for their ads; they have gone way too far, such as saying that the iPhone is "half the price" of the previous model: since the phone cannot be purchased without a contract, that is misleading at best.You may find it misleading but that doesn't make the claim false (or misleading, for that matter). You may have had a point if Apple was still revenue-sharing with AT&T but they're not. AT&T sets the length and cost of the contract and Apple sells you the phone. Both are independent of the other.
No, they are not independent of each other. From the customer's standpoint, last year I could buy an iPhone for $400 bundled with a voice/data plan at a minimum $60/month with a 2-year commitment. Today I can buy an iPhone for $200 bundled with a voice/data plan at a minimum $70/month with the same 2-year commitment. Until and unless Apple sells the phone "unbundled" with full warranty support then it's perfectly valid to point out that the "half the price" claim is only partly true. How or whether Apple and AT&T split the money is between them.

They actually are independent, customer's perspective notwithstanding. Apple sells the phone and has priced it at $200. AT&T sells the service and has priced it at $whatever. True one depends on the other, but they're still independent: if AT&T decided to drop the plan cost to $10/month whom would you thank? Apple or AT&T? If Apple were still selling the phone for $200 but AT&T offered a deal with a $0 iphone, i.e. paid Apple for you and gave you the phone free, who would be selling a $0 iPhone, Apple or AT&T?

[Wondercow]

[quote name='KPO'M']
>

Wondercow said:

> > They actually are independent, customer's perspective notwithstanding. Apple sells the phone and has priced it at $200. AT&T sells the service and has priced it at $whatever. True one depends on the other, but they're still independent: if AT&T decided to drop the plan cost to $10/month whom would you thank? Apple or AT&T? If Apple were still selling the phone for $200 but AT&T offered a deal with a $0 iphone, i.e. paid Apple for you and gave you the phone free, who would be selling a $0 iPhone, Apple or AT&T?

Quote

Since Apple accounts for the sale of the iPhone 1 and iPhone 2 in the same manner (over 2 years), they actually aren't independent. Apple requires a customer to buy the service from AT&T in order to buy the phone. All that changes in any of your scenarios (except a unilateral drop in the price of the service from AT&T) is when the customer pays, not how much.

I don't mean to sound negative, but, well, no. The realization of iPhone revenues over two years is tied to accounting practices not the contract. In some countries the service contract is less than (or more than?) two years yet Apple still realizes the revenue over the same 24-month period as in the U.S.

As for the scenarios, they're not "when the customer pays, not how much". If you get the phone for free you get the phone for free--this is usually accompanied by heftier service fees but the phone is still free, not to mention that it's the service provider who offers it free, the maker still gets their price.

[JDW]

Wondercow said:

I have to take issue with this... I was rear-ended on the highway over a year ago... I can't lift my seven-month-old daughter... I'm 32 and I permanently walk with a cane... Putting aside "pain and suffering" why shouldn't I be able to sue now that I have to hire someone to perform even the simplest task for me? I have no respect at all for the sue-happy civil system of the U.S., but there is a time and a place for civil suits. Why should I have to lose my home because the jerk behind me wasn't paying attention?

Wondercow, I am 37. When I was 35, my wife was driving an ultra-compact Japanese K-car one Sunday morning on a country road with myself in the back seat and my 3 year old next to me in the back and my 1 year old son in his child seat, also in the back. Because it was a country road, we were able to drive a bit faster than roads in the city. All said, a nut ran a stop sign and hit us on the driver's side of the car at a very fast speed. Because Japanese K-cars have 2 seat belts in the back (one for each of my children), and since at the time Japanese law didn't require me to have a belt on in the back, I of course didn't have a belt on. I wanted the kids to be in the back because that's safer than the front, and of course the front us unsafe also due to the air bags. I needed to be in the back though to keep my 3 year old calm. I sat right in the middle of both of them, and when the fool hit us, our car was pushed right in front of a metal guard rail and there was nothing my wife could do. We hit it at full speed and my head took out the everything in the path to the front windshield, including the rear view mirror. My head then hit the glass, almost went through, and the gear shifter (which sticks out from the steering column), stuck into my ribs. I was knocked out cold and I still have no memory of the accident. I too am in constant pain and can hardly lift anything, despite the rehabilitation program I went through. My body now is more accurate than the weather man in that I freeze up in even more excruciating pain than normal a day prior to it raining or a typhoon coming. I can walk without a cain, but I can't walk with my back straight because I'm in so much pain. Thankfully, my wife made a recovery in spite of her serious injuries. My children also recovered from broken bones. My daughter broke her wrist and my son was simply a miracle. The force of the impact was so intense that it busted up my son's child seat and he flew out of it when we hit the guard rail. What a blessing it was that he landed on my bottom after my head had impacted the front windshield. He suffered a broken hip, but his life was spared. And thankfully he has grown and is now able to walk.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Perhaps your case is more severe than mine. And I certainly do not discount your suffering. But I personally cannot take legal recourse in such actions. The insurer of the man who hit us said they would pay $10,000. I felt that was too low, so I spoke to my wife and negotiating with them further. If such re-negotiations failed, then I would just bite my tongue and be done with it -- no need to go to court about it.

A friend of ours who had a previous car accident here in Japan told us that re-negotiations would produce little to no fruit, but there were other alternatives. He said that first of all, we needed to make regular hospital visits and ensure all the expenses were documented. They would also pay extra money for each day I was at the rehabilitation center, so this friend suggested that I go every day if possible, for all the 180 days that the law allows for such rehabilitation cases to be covered under insurance. I did that. This friend also suggested an out of court "mediation" rather than a law suit. Such mediation services were offered in a city not far from where we live, and they currently are free for us and the insurer, despite the fact that the mediators are lawyer or x-lawyers. Indeed, the only reason I heeded the advice of my friend on this matter was because it was free and cost us nothing, the other party nothing and the city nothing. It is not the same thing as going to court or "suing someone" at all. That was comforting to me. I believe the aim of this service here in Japan is to try to get more people to take their cases to court when mediation fails (lawyers here of course want to make more money by getting people mad enough to sue), but my aim was to use the free service as a non-legal (out of court, free to the tax payer) means of re-negotiating with the insurer. I felt it was sufficiently detached from the legal system and my wife and I re-negotiated with the insurer in this way 3 times over a two month period.

All said, we received $23,000 from the insurer. That in no way compensates for all we went through, but such is the nature of Japan. (If I had been made completely unable to work, they might have paid $120,000 tops -- again, this is common here in Japan.) At least the amount we received helped us pay for a replacement car. But even if the mediation wasn't available here, then I would have tried to re-negotiate on my own, and ultimately would have accepted the $10,000 if that re-negotiation failed (I don't want to go to court about it). Also, huge US-style pay-outs are not common here. And that's why most people are not inclined to sue. Class action suits are also rare here. It may sound silly in light of what we went through, but it's very comforting to me, really. The nature of Japanese culture keeps "legal revenge" in check. Japanese society hasn't become what it is in the United States. The US is over-run with law suits of all kinds, and there will always be stories of great "pain and suffering" that people will use to justify those suits in some cases. Americans use anything to justify the suits.

I suppose I could allow for some exceptions. There will always be special cases, and in such cases, I guess it would be okay for them to go to court. But I feel those cases should be ultra-rare. I just don't like taking things to court. It's a burden on society and destroys harmony in American culture.

I would also like to say, especially for those of you who disagree with my on cases of car accidents or pain and suffering, that you should consider this topic is about Apple and corporate suits. I am against software patents, frivolous suits about so-called false advertising, and I feel there needs to be a means to limit people from suing companies over every little thing. That is my main point of posting in this thread. As an AAPL shareholder I don't want people to sue the company I've invested in. And that includes other shareholders too.

[hillstones]

I see more ads for the Samsung iPhone look-alike and they advertise high speed 3G internet too. So let's sue Samsung for making a phone.

You can't sue the hardware company when they don't run the cellular network! Just proves how stupid people are...I will avoid the obvious Alabama jokes!

The idiot needs to read the fine print, and check to see if there is any 3G coverage in Alabama. If she is not satisfied, RETURN THE DAMN PHONE! I am sure any phone in her area won't provide 3G service.

[Peter Cohen]

hillstones said:

The idiot needs to read the fine print, and check to see if there is any 3G coverage in Alabama. If she is not satisfied, RETURN THE DAMN PHONE! I am sure any phone in her area won't provide 3G service.

Turns out, at least according to reports, she lives and works in the Birmingham area. Greater Birmingham. Which numbers about a quarter million inhabitants, is one of the most largest banking centers in the U.S. Center to half a dozen colleges and universities, and at least another half dozen tech and business schools.

And yeah, has plenty of 3G access, at least according to AT&T Wireless' own Web site (search on zip code 35226).

Naw, let's chalk it up to some redneck who just don't know any better. Ain't stereotypes FUN?

Why is it so necessary to be so hostile to something that may very well have some merit?

Guess what? Just because the tort system in the United States is a totally screwed mess that makes class action lawsuits a big money business doesn't mean that every once in a while, someone who uses it may not have a point.

[JDW]

Peter Cohen said:

...doesn't mean that every once in a while, someone who uses it may not have a point.

Peter, we all know you mean well and you clearly wish to be the voice of balance and reason. And as an individual representing MW who so kindly hosts this forum for all of us (and puts up with our grunts and moans), we certainly offer you our most humble appreciation. Nevertheless, I personally cannot concede on the argument about "somebody might need to sue" until the US legal system becomes more like Japan. More specifically, until suing in the US becomes a rarity. I hardly can see that happening in our present US culture; but who knows, anything is possible.

I don't like suing!