iPhone 4 lawsuits - are people trying it on?

Stephen Withers
Friday, 02 July 2010 11:59

Opinion and Analysis

America - home of the free, or home of the litigious? Several iPhone 4 buyers are taking Apple and AT&T to court over alleged deficiencies in the new handset.

Apple is facing multiple lawsuits over the iPhone 4's antenna design.

In Maryland, a suit filed by Kevin McCaffrey and Linda Wrinn (seeking class action status) against Apple and AT&T alleges that the iPhone 4 was put on sale even though the antenna design results in reduced signal levels. The issue appears to occur when two parts of the antenna are bridged by the user's hand.

The suit claims that McCaffrey and Wrinn have been sold phones "that cannot be used for the normal purpose and in the normal manner in which such devices are intended to be used," which seems a stretch.

At least three similar suits have been filed in California by Alan Benvenisty, Christopher Dydyk, and Michael Goodglick et al.

Complainants appear to be particularly aggrieved by the way Apple and AT&T allegedly will not accept returns of the iPhone 4 in these circumstances without charging a restocking fee, or that Apple will not provide affected users with free bumpers. An iPhone 4 bumper is a rubber band that fits around the edge of the handset to provide some protection against accidental damage, but it also insulates the antenna from the user's hand.

Are other handsets vulnerable to this problem as Apple suggests? Read the results of my experiments on page 2.