Apple Class Action Lawsuit Filed in California On iOS 7
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Posted on 02/03/2017 12:48:11 PM PST by Swordmaker
A class-action lawsuit filed in California on Thursday alleges Apple schemed to force iPhone users to upgrade to iOS 7 in a bid to save money on a data services deal with Akamai, a move that rendered older hardware like iPhone 4 and 4S unusable.
Seemingly spawned from internal Apple documents disclosed during the VirnetX patent infringement lawsuit, which found Apple on the hook for $302.4 million in damages, the California action claims Apple intentionally broke FaceTime for devices running iOS 6 and earlier to avoid high monthly data relay charges from Akamai.
When FaceTime launched in 2010, Apple included two methods of connecting one iPhone to another. The first, a peer-to-peer technology, transferred audio and video data over a direct connection, while a second "relay method" used third-party servers run by Akamai to shuttle data back and forth.
Initially, calls routed through Akamai's relay servers only accounted for only 5 to 10 percent of FaceTime traffic, but usage quickly spiked. On Nov. 7, 2012, a jury found Apple's peer-to-peer FaceTime call technology in infringement of patents owned by VirnetX. Along with a $368 million fine, the ruling meant Apple would have to shift away from peer-to-peer to avoid further infringement.
Apple began to incur multi-million dollar monthly charges from Akamai as a result of the change. Testimony from the 2016 VirnetX retrial pegged relay fees at about $50 million between April 2013 and September 2013, rates that according to today's lawsuit were of concern to Apple executives. For example, an internal email with the subject "Ways to Reduce Relay Usage" circulated among employees as the company explored its options.
After eating rising relay service charges for nearly a year, Apple saw a chance to slow down or completely negate the fees in iOS 7. Among other system improvements, the next-generation OS included a method of creating peer-to-peer FaceTime connections without infringing on VirnetX patents. The only problem, according to the lawsuit, was that users continued to operate devices running iOS 6.
Citing internal emails and sworn testimony from the VirnetX trial, the lawsuit alleges Apple devised a plan to "break" FaceTime on iOS 6 or earlier by causing a vital digital certificate to prematurely expire. Apple supposedly implemented the "FaceTime Break" on April 16, 2014, then blamed the sudden incompatibility on a bug, the lawsuit claims.
This is an excerpt, read more here.
The fact is that iOS 7 would in fact work on iPhone 4 and 4s, so the only iPhones effected by this was the almost 5 year old iPhone 3GS, which could not be upgraded to iOS 7 due to hardware limitations. For the iPads, the iPad 2 did not have a front facing camera, so FaceTime was not an issue. By the time that iOS 7.0.4 was released, fewer than 6% of iOS users were still using iOS 6. Of those a much smaller subset were being affected by the FaceTime issue.
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https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/03/apple-accused-of-intentionally-breaking-facetime-on-ios-6/
Another take on the story.
Lawyers looking to get rich
Just like Microsoft broke my Windows 7 to the point I had to update to Windows 10. The bastards.
Facts mean nothing when people are mining for every $ they can squeeze from a multi$Billion corporation.
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