It’s not the first class-action suit the tech-giant is facing regarding cellular data. In October a couple from California filed a class-action lawsuit, valued at around $5 million, over the new Wi-Fi Assist feature baked into iOS 9. When you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, Wi-Fi Assist switches over to your mobile data if the Wi-Fi network is weak. It’s not good for people who are restricted to a certain amount of data each month. The good news is that you can turn this feature off, but the lawsuit alleges that Apple didn’t explain the new feature thoroughly enough to consumers.
The new lawsuit is more of an issue surrounding iPhone 5 and 5c’s on iOS 6 and 7. The devices would silently switch back to cellular data from Wi-Fi, and would even grab data while still connected to Wi-Fi. It’s an issue that Apple patched for Verizon customers in September of 2012.
But Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, the group that filed the class-action lawsuit, says that Apple took more than two years to fix the bug for AT&T customers, and didn’t tell them about the issue in that time frame. The firm says that this violates California’s Unfair Competition Law, the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and the False Advertising Law.
The claim was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose. If you have been affected by the Wi-Fi defect on an iPhone 5 or 5c, you may want to take a look at the firm’s website, which is letting people sign up to join the class action lawsuit.
