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Apple sued over misleading iPhone 3G data performance

By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 11:04 AM

Apple is being sued yet again by an irate iPhone 3G owner in Northern California. Disgruntled iPhone 3G user Jason Medway filed a 14-page suit that includes himself and all iPhone 3G owners in California as part of complaint. In the suit, Medway alleges that Apple has continued to push iPhone 3G sales with the knowledge that Apple handset’s 3G data connection was faulty. Medway claims that the hardware defect in the iPhone 3G is preventing the smartphone from maintaining a consistent connection to AT&T’s 3G network.

“Despite knowledge that the iPhone 3G cannot maintain consistent 3G service, defendant continues to solicit new orders in a multimillion-dollar television and print advertising campaign for the iphone-3g-black-1iPhone 3G,” the complaint says.  ”Apple simply replicated the problems by providing consumers with replacement phones and thus subject to the same issues which prompted the replacements.”

And, in an effort to bring justice to all those iPhone 3G owners in California that Apple apparently wronged, Medway and his attorneys are seeking upwards of $5 million in damages, and demands that Apple hand over all profits from iPhone 3G sales, with interest, no less. Of course, attorneys’ fees are included in the suit.

We’ll see how this latest lawsuit pans out. Apple is no stranger to lawsuits regarding its iPhone 3G. We’ve seen plenty of court-filings from iPhone users disappointed with their device. But, given that a recent Wired survey found that 3G data performance depended on a particular wireless carrier’s network, rather than the hardware, we can’t see this lawsuit gaining much traction with the courts.

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • James

    The problem most likely is ATT network. When I used the iPhone 3G in Europe performed much better.

  • Johnny

    I’m not surprised I have the new Blackberry Bold and it does the same thing on their network.
    It will not stay on 3G it continually switches from 3G to 2G to GPRS AT&T’s network sucks.

  • Howard

    Its not the iPhone or Apple…go after AT & T! Service provider – No bars in more places!

  • jfgrissom

    I work with AT&T on a Smart Meter Project (IE: Electric Smart Meters) and the devices we use to connect to the AT&T network fail all the time.

    We have literally 1000s of devices that go up and come down all day long. I guarantee they don’t have iPhone code or hardware running on them.

    So is the root cause of the failure the service or the device?

    If all devices fail logic clearly dictates a potential problem with the service not every single device.

    My iPhone actually connects more reliably, than any of the other devices we’ve tested.

    I think Jason Medway must be doing this for the publicity because he can’t be doing it because he has actually researched the subject.