Apple Sued Over iPhone Non-Replaceable Batteries

UnknowingFool writes "A customer named Jose Trujillo has filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple over the iPhone batteries. According to the suit, Apple did not disclose that the batteries of the iPhone were not user-replaceable. Also the plaintiff alleges that the battery will need to replaced every year. When a battery needs to be replaced, the customer will be without a phone for several days unless the customer pays $29.95 for a loaner phone service. Lastly, the plaintiff alleges that the battery information was difficult to find on Apple's website."

Stupidest lawsuit ever

[daveschroeder]

But let's not even talk about that. Let's not even talk about the horrid spelling, grammar, and general rambling idiocy of the lawsuit. Let's not even consider that these questions have been asked and answered [ipodbatteryfaq.com][1] for years with the iPod. Let's actually focus on the actual issues at hand.

The iPhone doesn't have a user-replaceable battery, but it is replaceable. This is the same as all iPods for the last several years. And no, the iPhone isn't the first of these devices to have a battery that is soldered. Various iPod models have already had soldered batteries. Also, the battery replacement information was available the day the iPhone shipped. So, nothing new here.

As to the "difficulty" of finding the information on Apple's site:

Main iPhone support page [apple.com] -> Battery Service: FAQ [apple.com] and iPhone Service: FAQ [apple.com]

and

Apple Batteries [apple.com] -> Apple iPhone Batteries [apple.com]

Wow. Difficult.

Additionally, asking any Apple retail store, customer service representative, dealer, authorized service provider, etc., will yield a direct and immediate answer about battery replacement.

It's also utterly and ridiculously false to say that a new battery is required every year. All lithium ion batteries have about the same lifetime. The iPhone's lithium ion battery is no different. Most people will not need, or feel they need, to replace the battery in the lifetime of the phone (i.e., while they own and are using it). The "400 charges" thing isn't any 400 charges; partial charges are just that: partial. This lithium ion battery is no different from any other.

Also, the battery is covered by the warranty, and if you choose to extend the warranty to two years with the $69 AppleCare Protection Plan for iPhone [apple.com], the battery is covered under that as well. There are even already third party replacement options [ipodjuice.com]. As with iPod, more are sure to come.

The customer also doesn't have to be without a phone for several days, and claiming that they do because there is a fee for a loaner is ridiculous. Just pretend that the battery replacement costs $29 more, then. You are not without a phone at all: you swap SIMs, sync once with iTunes, and it will literally look, act, feel, and behave like your phone, with your phone number and all of your data. Seeing how Apple has done such programs in the past, the loaner phone will probably be a new service phone or a factory-refurbished phone in a brand new enclosure (so it looks physically brand new). The total price is almost the same as the official iPod battery replacement plan was for years. If you choose to not have a phone in the meantime, that's your choice.

A recent New York Times article by Joe Nocera [nytimes.com] sums it up best:

I'm convinced the answer is that the chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, and Apple's design chief, Jonathan Ive, are design snobs, who care more about form than function. Larry Keeley, the president of the design firm Doblin Inc., wrote me an e-mail message after he'd seen the innards of the iPhone, which several Web sites have now published. The battery, he told me, lacks the normal metal jacket, making it ''thinner and lighter, while also making it more difficult for consumers to handle or dispose of.'' He added: ''This is clear evidence that they are optimizing the INSIDES of the phone to the OUTSIDE form factor that they have designed. It is far more common and much cheaper to design the oth

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, thats about how long a typical li-ion battery lasts before it loses its useful charging capacity. Unless Apple has a super li-ion battery that I never heard of before :)

(and if they do, more power to them!)

This is crazy.

[scifience]

Should I sue Oral-B because my electric toothbrush has a non-user-replaceable rechargeable battery? Honda because my hybrid Accord has a whole array of non-user-replaceable batteries?

Hard to find the info on the battery replacement? Google "iphone battery" and you'll get this [google.com]... the official Apple site is the second result, and the first one is from CNET talking about the program.

This is just another person looking to make some money with a frivolous lawsuit.

Re:boo hoo

[tmarthal]

or get a loaner phone, which probably doesn't have all your calendar and address book information, that a lot worse.

Uhh, I had to do a factory reset of my iPhone via iTunes the day after it came out (this is due to my user error, it hardlocked and I could have power+menu button together hard-reset it, but I didn't read the manual!). My contact information, SMS, calendar, Safari Bookmarks, Voicemails(!) all were saved. All were re-loaded onto my iPhone after the software reset and re-activation (which was "This phone is already activated."). [Note: this has to do with how the iphone syncs other program information.]

The only thing that I lost was my Camera Roll pictures (the ones that were taken with the phone), because I hadn't known at the time how to offload the pictures onto my computer (since fixed). And when I was playing with the picture settings, two (of seven) pictures that I had added to contacts were removed (but that was because I was fiddling with the on computer cached images).

So, if Apple gave me another loaner phone, I could just plug it into iTunes and have a fully functional replica re-synced phone in 2 minutes.

Everyone says that the iPhone revolution is all in the software, and it is.

Not new

[Sir Holo]

Consumer devices with non-replaceable batteries have been around for decades.

Decades!

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[Doctor_Jest]

Just as an FYI, the Samsung Upstage does not have a user-replaceable battery... and nowhere on Sprint or Samsung's site (that I've seen) lists that as a "feature" either. It's not on the "sheet" you see next to the phone (I know, I've looked) and it's not on the box it comes in. It seems that you don't need to love the iPod to ask a simple question. Samsung and Apple must be in cahoots! :)

Yet people buy it (and the iPhone)... The only way you know it's not replaceable is to read the FAQ in the manual (at the back of the manual).. unless you know someone who has one, or you ask the clerk "is it user-replaceable?" 5 milliseconds of work. If the person didn't do that, and now is filing a lawsuit, he is advertising his stupidity. Is it a valid business decision to make non-user-replaceable batteries? I don't know... my phone's got a user-replaceable battery, so I couldn't care less. If it's not acceptable... don't buy it. Simple as that.

And I replaced my 2nd Gen iPod battery already. Didn't pay $29 for it or the "service" to have it done.. but some people can't manage that... so having Apple do it might be a good thing... or they'll have tons of borked iPhones on their hands.

One attorney's take...

[thefinite]

"I think the responsibility of proving (to a judge, at least) that this isn't merely another means of vendor lock-in is rests with Apple. They departed from the standard. The 'why' of the matter is crucial."

This, actually, is immaterial to the suit. Why Apple sealed the battery inside shouldn't affect the judgment. The issue is whether or not the sealed battery violates some sort of contractual or warranty obligation that Apple has when it sells iPhones. The only way the Plaintiff(s) can get away with a claim like this is to prove that they didn't know about the battery issue before they bought the phone, *and* that it was reasonable for them to understand differently. As a contract claim, they also have to show that the actual battery replacement program is not sufficient based on their previous claims.

The biggest problem for the Plaintiff(s)--Trujillo and any others that join the class--is that courts generally place a heavy burden on buyers to educate themselves about a good or service before they purchase. I think that it's pretty plain that the information about the battery was widely available. Heck, all he had to do was ask the salesperson.

Speaking as an attorney, my suspicion is that either a greedy plaintiff or greedy attorney decided to get in the door first on what they saw to be a potentially huge issue. (Getting in the claim first is very important for class action attorneys because once a class action is settled, future claims on the same issue are barred. Being the name plaintiff in a class action is also important because you usually get more than the rest of the class.) I also think that Apple would be crazy to settle this. There will be multiple opportunities for Apple to ask the court to dismiss the suit or rule in their favor in summary judgment, meaning the cost of defending it wouldn't be too egregious. If they settle this, it sends a strong message that they are willing to roll over in the face of weak claims. All kinds of crazy claims would pop up. The plaintiff(s)'s attorneys have to spend time and money pursuing this with the risk that they will get nothing. They won't stay in too long as they come to realize that it's a plainly frivolous claim.

I really hate it when I see people using the legal system to extort money rather than to get what they actually have a right to under the law.

On avg Americans change phones every 18 months

[gelfling]

On average Americans change their phones every 18 months. I can tell you that in all the years I or my family have owned cell phones I've replaced exactly one battery. What torques me is the OBSCENE cost of replacement batteries. For the money you might as well replace the phone.

Re:We could be TAD more objective about this, no?

[drhamad]

Just to hop on thefinite's previous reply to this post, since he did such a good job, I'd like to comment on these: 1) The case is supposed to be arguing that it WAS difficult to know that the battery was hard wired. No argument needs be made about the present day, the content of Google's current search engine, etc. I for one had no idea. Several technical publications (including /.) thought the fact was headline worthy - aka 'news'. So trying to say that it is impossible that it was news to a zero-day owner is just f'king goofy.

Buying a product without significantly researching it pretty much makes your claim... worthless. Especially when all you had to do was ask a sales associate or go to Apple.com. Apple did not in any way hide this, nevermind make a claim that it WAS user replaceable. They've said straight out that it is not a user replaceable part. Further, several technical publications (ie every news or review site on the planet) has pretty much commented that it isn't user replaceable. So unless we intend to protect people who do ZERO research into what they buy (and theoretically, we don't protect that person), this logic does not work.

2) Both cell phones and laptops are supposed to have batteries that can be replaced by the end user. There is a reason for this. To suggest that the bastard child of a lappy and a phone is immune from those same reasons is just plain dense.

They are? Companies commonly use replaceable batteries for their obvious advantages, but not always. The Samsung Upstage does not have a replaceable battery either (and that fact is far more "hidden" than the iPhone battery issue is). It's a design/engineering decision. User replaceable batteries are bigger and require more parts than do non-replaceable ones. One form of engineering may be common usage, but that doesn't make it something that companies are "supposed" to do. If you don't like the alternative form of engineering, don't buy it. But it isn't fraud, it isn't false advertising, it isn't in any way actionable to use the other form.

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[daveschroeder]

So you believe that if a large corporation wanted to buy 10,000 iPhones, Apple would turn them down?

That "large corporation" would know damned well exactly what the iPhone does, doesn't, can, and can't do before buying 10,000 of them.

The point is that people seem to think that Apple is inappropriately targeting or marketing this at enterprise/corporate markets, only to have people disappointed that it's not a drop-in replacement in every respect for a Blackberry, Treo, or Windows Mobile smartphone. The point is that Apple is not only NOT targeting those markets at all, it doesn't promote the iPhone as an enterprise/corporate device or smartphone, and clearly positions it, from marketing, sales, and support perspectives as a consumer device.

And actually, yes, they would "turn them down", right now anyway. There is no way to currently get an iPhone as anything but an individual from Apple, and on anything but individual, personal AT&T accounts. They are NOT selling to education, government, business, or corporate customers. Now, if some customer said, hey, we want 10,000 iPhones (like Apple itself, for example), that customer would probably also be very aware of the iPhones capabilities, and would plan infrastructure and support accordingly, and Apple and AT&T would probably work with them.

But that wasn't at all the point to which I was speaking in my previous post.

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[tlhIngan]

I've never heard of a "Samsung Upstage" but I imagine that you must have looked pretty hard (or been unlucky) to have discovered another phone with a soldered-in battery. I've never heard of it in over 12 years of owning and reading about mobile phones.

Well, it's not a 12 year old phone. It's at most a few months old (released April). It's sold by Sprint, and you've probably seen it (though you've probably not heard its name) if you're in the US. It's the phone where one side is a phone with the keypad and everything, and if you flip it over, the other side is an MP3 player with MP3 player controls. (And if you're outside of North America, well, we don't get all the nice phones you guys do, but I'm sure your "reading about mobile phones" should include what models we get, since we may have a phone that's identical to a 3 year old phone you've had, with a different model number).

A quick google will find you more information. Here's nice pictures from Engadget - http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/26/sprint-announce s-samsung-upstage-99-cent-songs-over-the-air/ [engadget.com]

For us Canada folk, Telus sells 'em, and I suspect Bell will too. It's a CDMA phone.

Re:Maybe Not

[WinterSolstice]

How about a Pocket PC? A Palm? Many of the Palms and Pocket PCs didn't/don't have user replaceable batteries.

How about my logitech cordless mouse here? It doesn't.
Lots of devices don't have replaceable batteries for lots of reasons.

Uh, no

[theurge14]

Uh, no. The Apple website quite clearly states that iTunes is used to activate the phone:

Here [apple.com]
Here and [apple.com]
Here and also [apple.com]
Here [apple.com]

And Apple quite clearly states that it is for use with Mac and Windows:

Here and [apple.com]
Here [apple.com]

That only required about 30-45 seconds of clicking links.

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[InvalidError]

With lithium batteries, it is charge depth that makes the largest difference: they last longest when they are not allowed to drop much below 70-80%. Actually, this is true for most rechargeable battery technologies. Overcharging (deficient charger designs) is the other major cause of premature failures - my cheap GE cordless phone pretty much killed its OEM NiCd batteries within a year.

If my laptop's battery is any indication of typical li-ion batteries, deep-cycling hurts them really bad - I deep-cycled my laptop's battery many more times than I ever meant to due to the power brick's plug slipping out of the laptop's socket on its own and the charge circuit being inhibited unless the plug is fully inserted. After about a year, I was already down to around 70% battery life even though I used my laptop plugged-in (as far as I knew) 99% of the time.

At the other end of the spectrum, my current cell phone (four years old Nokia 7190) also has a li-ion battery. I plug it in overnight whenever possible and the battery still holds a very decent charge: the phone still indicates a full battery after 3-4 days of (unplugged) standby, seems as good as new.

Re:Maybe Not

[leenks]

Actually, many watches require a special tool to remove the back before you get to the battery. You then need a new seal to put the thing back together or it won't be waterproof anymore.

Not really that different to opening an iPod or iPhone is it in this case?

Re:Uh, no

[NetDanzr]

My results:

• iPhone main page - No activation info, but a very visible link to an "Activation and Sync" video.
• Activation and Sync - "This page requires the Quicktime plugin." Back to main page.
• Questions and Answers - I guess this is Apple talk for "FAQ". Oh, here's something: Will iPhone work with my PC and Microsoft Windows? Yes. iPhone works with Windows XP Home or Professional (SP2), and Windows Vista. See specifications for more details." This does not suggest a requirement.
• Specifications - Apple sent me to this page from the previous one, so I checked it out. Ah, here it is: Mac System Requirements and Windows System Requirements. But wait a minute: where does it say that I need one of those to use the iPhone as a standalone device? I may understand it (and up to this point I did) as system setup needed if I wanted to connect the phone to a computer - for example to synchronize my address book or to download my mp3 collection. So back to home page.
• News release - Oh, there's another link to "Activation and Sync" on the main page. It points to a news story, which reads, "CUPERTINO, California and ATLANTAJune 26, 2007Apple® and AT&T Inc. today announced that iPhone users will be able to activate their new iPhones using Apples popular iTunes® software". It goes on saying that this is for the user's convenience. Nowhere it says iTunes is required. So back to square one.
• Apple support - There it is. Three levels down into the support page I finally found that I'd need iTunes.

I can conclude that those who responded to me that iTunes was required were right. However, the information was hidden so deep in the support portion of the Web site while the marketing site merely suggested that iTunes would make the phone owner's life more easy that I would easily be fooled and purchased an iPhone if I ever wanted it. In addition, considering that there is a direct link from the marketing page to the battery replacement page I would've never expected that a much greater customer support issue was not mentioned.

Re:Standing?

[bdo19]

But what if it's painfully obvious upon looking at the car in the dealer showroom, prior to purchase, that the wheels were welded to the axles, and you chose to buy it anyhow? And what if, once you got the car home and discovered that the wheels were welded to the axles, you had 14 days to return it for a full refund, but you chose to keep it? And what if, in addition, this particular car was a $150,000 sports car for which there was a performance and styling advantage to having the wheels welded to the axles? If this case doesn't get thrown out of court, and if Apple doesn't countersue for court costs due to a frivolous lawsuit, then I will have lost the last thread of faith I have in our court system. Unless there's more to it than meets the eye.

Re:Maybe Not

[soft_guy]

Replacing the battery in my iPod only involved using a tool that they (Newer Technology) sent me along with the battery. It didn't involve any soldering.

Re:Maybe Not

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

How about a Pocket PC? A Palm? Many of the Palms and Pocket PCs didn't/don't have user replaceable batteries.

How about my logitech cordless mouse here? It doesn't.
Lots of devices don't have replaceable batteries for lots of reasons.

Every single cell phone I've owned, from super cheap to super expenssive, for the last 10 years, had a user-replacable battery. Heck, every phone I've even lightly considered owning has had a 'high-capacity' upgrade available for it. It'd be surprising to find a phone that has a soldered-in battery, even if one owned a logitech cordless mouse or a PocketPC.

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[pthor1231]

I did some digging cause I was curious, and its a bit outdated (if what I found was the most recent one). Looks like it has already been settled, and it was only for owners of Motorola V710, and from what I could tell they only got a 15 dollar credit. Some links for digestion:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1751567,00.as p [eweek.com]
http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/01/class-action-la wsuit-against-verizon-over-bluetooth-on-the/ [engadget.com]
http://www.kirtlandpackard.com/v710/ [kirtlandpackard.com]

Re:TYPICAL

[superbus1929]

You're absolutely right. My last comment got modded down, this one will get modded down, and that makes 90% of my posts that get modded down are because I'm saying something bad about Apple. The first couple times, I tried to be reasonable (I think Apples are too limited, software-wise, to be reliable for almost anyone), but I'd get slammed down by the pro-Mac crowd. No reason whatsoever. So now, I'm just saying they can go fuck themselves.

At best, I'm wasting someone's precious mod points. This is all they use them for anyway, so fuck it.

Re:Stupidest lawsuit ever

[AncientPC]

Lithium-ion batteries (and all lithium-based batteries) will degrade 20% in storage capacity from the manufacturing date when stored at 77F regardless of use (1). Different storage temperatures result in different storage capacity degradation. Charging or discharging will not reduce the storage capacity unless it significantly raises the battery temperature, i.e. quick chargers.

I have searched everywhere to find manufacturing dates for my laptop batteries, but everyone seems reluctant to list that information. Lithium-based batteries really need a "born on" date.

1 [batteryuniversity.com]