Florida Court Dismisses Lawsuit Claiming Apple 'Broke' FaceTime on Older iPhones to Save Costs

[MacRumors]

A court in Florida has dismissed a consumer lawsuit alleging that Apple intentionally "broke" FaceTime on older iPhones as a cost-saving measure (via Bloomberg Law).

In 2017, a similar class-action lawsuit was brought against Apple in California that claimed Apple broke FaceTime in iOS 6 to force users to upgrade to iOS 7. According to the lawsuit, Apple forced users to upgrade so it could avoid payments on a data deal with Akamai.

Apple agreed in February to settle the lawsuit in California, but the federal court in the Florida case ruled on Tuesday that the claims against Apple did not meet timeliness requirements. According to U.S. District Court Judge Raag Singhal, the complainants had several chances to file suit against Apple, but didn't lodge their complaint until August 2019.

Apple used two connection methods when it launched FaceTime in 2010: a peer-to-peer method that created a direct connection between two iPhones, and a relay method that used data servers from content delivery network company Akamai Technologies.

Apple's peer-to-peer FaceTime technology was found to infringe on VirnetX's patents in 2012, however, so the company began to shift toward the relay method, which used Akamai's servers. Within a year, Apple was paying $50 million in fees to Akamai, according to testimony from the VirnetX trial.

Apple eventually solved the problem by creating new peer-to-peer technology that would debut in iOS 7. The class-action lawsuits, however, alleged that Apple created a fake bug that caused a digital certificate to prematurely expire on April 16, 2014, breaking FaceTime on iOS 6.

The lawsuits claimed that breaking FaceTime in iOS 6 allowed Apple to save money because it would no longer need to support users who did not upgrade to iOS 7.

Article Link: Florida Court Dismisses Lawsuit Claiming Apple 'Broke' FaceTime on Older iPhones to Save Costs

 

[farewelwilliams]

good. it was a frivolous lawsuit anyways

 

[I7guy]

Maybe this dismissal will slow the profits over everything else meme.

 

[mazz0]

Well not really, there's been no demonstration either way on whether Apple did what it's accused of or not. The case has only been dismissed on a technicality.

 

[KrisLord]

The bit I don’t get is even if Apple did do this to avoid costs, what’s wrong with that?

There was no guarantee offered That FaceTime would last forever. It’s similar to how old game servers get turned off years after a game is released so certain features stop working.

 

[gnasher729]

Well not really, there's been no demonstration either way on whether Apple did what it's accused of or not. The case has only been dismissed on a technicality.

The case was brought in 2019 for something that happened in 2010. That's not a "technicality", it's statute of limitations, which means the lawyers wasted their time even trying to bring the case.

 

[aknabi]

The bit I don’t get is even if Apple did do this to avoid costs, what’s wrong with that?

There was no guarantee offered That FaceTime would last forever. It’s similar to how old game servers get turned off years after a game is released so certain features stop working.

It depends on if you're a shareholder or religious fanboy or normal civilian/consumer... if the former then sure it's a great to avoid all costs... if the latter a bit annoying.

I'm sure if your washing machine stopped having a few clothing and spin cycles that used to be there because they decided to "stop support to avoid costs" you'd have a conniption fit... 100% for sure.

 

[Radon87000]

Doesn’t matter what the courts say. It was planned obsolescence just like the throttlegate fiasco.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

Go Florida!
We also just told Mike Huckabee to “kick rocks” when he and his rich neighbors attempted to sue the county- apparently shutting down the beaches should only apply to the plebeians... the wealthy need unfettered access to their beachfront property for “emergency” entertaining of friends.
He feels his constitutional rights are being trampled & best use of public governmental funds right now would be to compensate him & his fellow beachfront property owners for all the anguish.

 

[MattMJB0188]

I pray every day that Apple restores the iOS 6 look. I do agree with the lawsuit. Many people did not upgrade because of the horrible iOS 7 look and were out face time.

 

[Ethosik]

Doesn’t matter what the courts say. It was planned obsolescence just like the throttlegate fiasco.

I always find it funny when people link that to planned obsolescence. What Apple did was the opposite of planned obsolescence. Keeping your phone running longer without shutting down randomly means your phone would last longer.

 

[spartan1967]

Should have sued Apple for all the bugs in iOS 13. Would have had a better chance at not getting dismissed by the court.

 

[macfacts]

"fool me twice", everyone that buys an iPhone deserves the planned obleselence and the bugs

 

[chrono1081]

Good. These frivolous lawsuits only drive prices up for the consumer. It’s ridiculous to even think of suing because of something like this.

 

[I7guy]

"fool me twice", everyone that buys an iPhone deserves the planned obleselence and the bugs

Yep, apple is laughing all the way to the bank, from their pot of gold resulting in unsuspecting people not noticing what Apple is really doing. /s (edit)

 

[4jasontv]

The bit I don’t get is even if Apple did do this to avoid costs, what’s wrong with that?

There was no guarantee offered That FaceTime would last forever. It’s similar to how old game servers get turned off years after a game is released so certain features stop working.

These is no money in shut down game studios to justify suing. But someone should try to set a precedent. That no one has sued them doesn’t make what they did right. Nor what Apple did. The won by a technicality.

 

[lunarworks]

I pray every day that Apple restores the iOS 6 look.

*vomits skeuomorphically*

 

[TobiWahn_Kenobi]

I always find it funny when people link that to planned obsolescence. What Apple did was the opposite of planned obsolescence. Keeping your phone running longer without shutting down randomly means your phone would last longer.

problem is that many of those directly affected would have had the right to get the battery swapped on warranty because it failed within a years time (or within 2 years time in countries like those in most of Europe). But Apple just hobbled your phone so it would last past the warranty period.

 

[BvizioN]

Doesn’t matter what the courts say. It was planned obsolescence just like the throttlegate fiasco.

I get it.
It doesn't matter what the court says when it doesn't suit your personal believes.
[automerge]1586957620[/automerge]

I pray every day that Apple restores the iOS 6 look. I do agree with the lawsuit. Many people did not upgrade because of the horrible iOS 7 look and were out face time.

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would want to go backwards (like nearly a decade), but I keep telling myself, people are weird!

 

[JoshBoy]

I pray every day that Apple restores the iOS 6 look. I do agree with the lawsuit. Many people did not upgrade because of the horrible iOS 7 look and were out face time.

Massively disagree. I just googled ios6 vs ios7 look to look back at a side by side comparison and ios7 is soooooo much better looking.

 

[I7guy]

Doesn’t matter what the courts say. It was planned obsolescence just like the throttlegate fiasco.

Think it matters very much what the courts decide. But YMMV will vary on that.

 

[Jynto]

I pray every day that Apple restores the iOS 6 look. I do agree with the lawsuit. Many people did not upgrade because of the horrible iOS 7 look and were out face time.

I was using iOS 6 on my main device until 2017 - almost four years past its supposed expiration date. In fact, my old phone still has it. I only upgraded by replacing the hardware.

By now I've gotten used to the aggressive blandness of software design post-Jobs, but every time I see the older OSes (in screenshots, and in TV from the early 2010s) I am reminded of how much I miss that look.

In the end though, it was not the loss of Facetime that killed iOS 6 for me (I can count on one hand the number of times I've used that since 2017.) It was the slow death of every other internet-connected app on the platform.

Youtube was an early casualty as I recall. You could still use it in the browser, but even that started breaking as more and more websites stopped supporting it. Certain apps like Twitter and Instagram wouldn't work unless I updated to their blander modern counterparts, until those too stopped working. Some apps might send you an email written in PR-speak about how they were "retiring" or "sunsetting" the old versions, whereas others stopped working or crashed one day without explanation. New apps never worked in the first place. And towards the end, Dropbox announced an API change which broke EVERYTHING that relied on Dropbox integration. Then when WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger stopped working within a few months of each other (go figure) there was no web-based alternative, or at least none that delivered push notifications. And that was the final straw.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Apple were quite diligent about keeping their old servers switched on. They don't support everything (Weather stopped working years ago, and anything with iCloud integration died when they made iCloud Drive the only way for apps to connect), but at the time of writing, I could still sign into iTunes Match and use it as an iPod if I so desired.

TL;DR Apple killed their OS by dropping support for it, but so did every other company, and other ones arguably did it worse.

(Except by some miracle... Evernote still works??? even though their *updates* required iOS 7 on pretty much day one.)

 

[kyjaotkb]

Apple's Facetime support on older devices, and the documentation thereof, are still a mess on macOS, though.

• Their Facetime support page says OS X Lion is the minimum requirement: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208176
• Their iCloud support page lists OS X Mavericks as the minimum OS for Facetime: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204230

Having recently done a fresh install of Lion on a Macbook (late 2006) which I hoped to use for Facetime, I can say that Facetime, indeed, doesn't work on Lion anymore...

 

[Baymowe335]

Doesn’t matter what the courts say. It was planned obsolescence just like the throttlegate fiasco.

Nice evidence, but that’s not how things work.

 

[mazz0]

Ah, iOS 6, those were the days. Tell you what I miss most: Game Centre!