Apple To Face Lawsuit For iMessage Glitch 238
An anonymous reader writes "We've all heard about iPhone users switching over to Android-powered phones and no longer being able to receive text messages from friends and family still using iPhones. Well, a woman with exactly this issue has filed a lawsuit against Apple, complaining that '[p]eople who replace their Apple devices with non-Apple wireless phones and tablets are "penalized and unable to obtain the full benefits of their wireless-service contracts."' To be specific, '[t]he suit is based on contractual interference and unfair competition laws.' She is seeking class action status and undetermined damages."
Anti-competitive (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the kind of anti-competitive behavior that gets companies in trouble and causes regulatory crackdowns. Phone companies that make it hard to switch carriers. domain registrars that make it hard to switch registrars, and banks which make it hard to switch banks have all gotten in trouble for this.
Re:good (Score:3, Interesting)
If they are on an iPhone:
SMS is green
iMessage is light Blue
iMessage users they can switch to a video call with facetime or use facetime audio all from within the messaging application. No, no, no... we aren't playing this game that users weren't told many many times what the difference is. My technically illiterate father understands that SMS (green) goes out a reliable voice radio available most anywhere while iMessage goes out a different radio that he only gets on major highways and population centers. Over and over and over again Apple made the difference explicit to these users. They requested Appel do something and are now complaining that Apple is doing what they requested. That's like saying people getting off a plane to Florida are suffering because the airline took them to Florida, and how were they supposed to know to look at their ticket.
And of course they are able to solve this. First off many of them have iPads or Macs so they are likely still getting the messages. So they know where they are going, they can literally see them going there. And if they don't have other devices, they have friends who do and went through this. But even if the iPhone was their only device, and they don't ask anyone all they have to do is think for 10 seconds. "Hmm... my friends are sending me messages and they are still going to my device. But when I look at my friend's screens it shows the messages they meant to send me are going out iMessage. Which means Apple still thinks my device is active. Wow better tell Apple it isn't...." Come on. We expect this level of competency in every other area of life. In 2014 we expect people to understand the concept of computer accounts and the distinction between the web and their local computer.
Dude you are on /. This isn't a problem with either handset. I can associate n-numbers with a handset or m-handsets with a number. It has nothing to do with handsets. If handset X has number Y and I can associate number Z from another handset with it and not associate Y. Frankly were it not for Apple's security feature to prevent you from hijacking phone numbers I could associate numbers I don't even own with my iMessage account.
I'm still unclear how the system is broken. If I lose my Apple handset I still want my iMessages to get to my computer or iPad. The default is exactly the behavior I want. I want Apple to work to try and get messages to me as aggressively as possible. That's the setup we are talking about. If I didn't want that I'd choose a different configuration.
Certainly a page on Apple's website explaining this would be useful. But really the only people who know that number X switched from an iPhone to an Android are the carriers. If there is going to a fix the obvious fix is they let Apple know and Apple sends an email to the end user with instructions. But still everyone is going to say how people don't read emails from companies....
Re:good (Score:4, Interesting)
I've dealt with this issue for people at work, and it's enough of a pain that for business accounts you just pony up the extra cash for a new iPhone, rather than trying to explain to multiple clients why their text messages are failing.
I'm glad someone is suing Apple for it, because it's a terrible design to hijack SMS messages without explicit user permission - especially if you don't immediately switch back over to using normal SMS after a failed iMessage delivery. It should be automatic, or at very most one manual resend - but they require multiple failures to be manually resent before switching back.
I really don't understand why anyone would defend this behavior since transparently hijacking any type of data without permission is obviously a violation of user trust, and possibly a privacy issue as well.