iPhone class action: guess who will win

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 01 August 2007 12:57

Your IT - Mobility

So Jose Trujillo has launched a class action suit against Apple and AT&T over the iPhone's battery life and replacement cost.

The suit alleges fraudulent concealment, consumer fraud. breach of contract, unjust enrichment, breach of implied warranties.

The filing asserts "Defendant's purposeful and fraudulent concealment to purchasers... that they will be required to incur an annual fee of $[US]85.99 as part of Defendants' battery replacement program."

The papers go on to assert that "undisclosed to the public, prior to purchase, the iPhone is a sealed unit with it's [sic] battery soldered onto the inside of the device so that it cannot be changed by the owner" and the battery "can only be charged approximately 300 times... necessitating a new battery annually".

Firstly, it was widely reported (eg, by iTWire) prior to the iPhone's release that the battery was not removable.

Secondly, the 300 charges is Apple's figure, but the limit with this battery technology is the number of complete charging cycles. So if you half discharge the battery each day and recharge it every night, that's only 3.5 charges per week.

In any case, it simply isn't true that buyers are "required to incur an annual fee of $85.99" - buyers can instead elect to spend $US69 on AppleCare, and then if the battery's capacity drops to 50 percent of nominal within two years of purchase, it will be replaced at no further charge.

If that's not enough, at least one supplier (Brando) is already listing a replacement battery for the iPhone, priced at $US20 (plus $US3 for worldwide shipping), complete with tools and instructions. If you don't want to do the job yourself, you can bet it'll be easy enough to find someone competent enough to do the job while you wait instead of sending the iPhone away to Apple. Will that void the warranty? Irrelevant - the warranty will most likely have elapsed by the time the battery needs changing.