Apple sued for iBricking 3G, 3GS as iOS 4.2 nears launch

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 07 November 2010 20:14

Your IT - Mobility

Rumour suggests Apple's iOS 4.2 update will launch within the next 24 hours, bringing long awaited new features to the iPad at last, and perhaps set to magically and revolutionary fix the claimed iBrick-level problems that some iPhone 3G and 3GS users say they've had since boarding the iOS 4.x bandwagon, leading to a class-action lawsuit against the Kingdom of Crunch!

On the one hand, Apple is getting ready to launch its latest iOS update, iOS 4.2, it's most advanced ever and what plenty will be using until Apple revolutionises the smartphone tablet UI experience again with iOS 5.0 sometime next year, or whenever the next great leap is planned to happen.

iOS 4.2 is most anticipated for the iPad, being the iPad's first 4.x operating system, and for bringing Apple's famously conservative version of multitasking to the iPad at last, extending its usefulness as a device with even more multitasking capabilities beyond the previous email checking, music playing and other selected background capabilities.

AirPlay, AirPrint, folders, multitasking, the mute hardware button change that only mutes incoming email and other system sounds, but not also muting any locally playing or streaming audio or video as some have expected, thus working in exactly the same way the mute switch works on iPhones now'¦ unified email inbox'¦ new access to on-screen brightness controls, volume controls, screen lock and more.

They'll make the iPad instantly more capable and more useful, adding massive value to the platform for existing users as Apple prepares to launch the iPad's inevitable and more superior successor.

Apple does the best job of updating and bringing new features to an existing platform, or at least once it gets past the new x.0 version to at least a x.1 and then better.

On the other hand, Apple's attempts at bringing its existing hardware base into the iOS 4.x generation doesn't always go down universally well for all iPhone users. Not only were original iPhone 2G users left out altogether, but iPhone 3G users were especially affected with the original iOS 4.0 release.

Things improved somewhat for many 3G users with the iOS 4.1 update, but complaints and concerns continued. Some iPhone 3GS users have also been unhappy, although my own experience of iOS 4.0 and 4.1 on an iPhone 3GS has been positive, with the main unresolved issue being the slowdown in typing speed recognition when composing long SMS messages, something that appeared in iOS 2.x and was fixed, didn't appear in iOS 3.x but is maddeningly back in iOS 4.x.

As reported in PC Magazine online, California woman Bianca Wofford claims iOS 4 bricked her iPhone 3GS, making her phone 'little more than a paper weight and ultimately useless', and filed her class-action lawsuit on behalf of iPhone 3G and 3GS users.

Continued on page two, please read on!