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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Tech News > Apple must face lawsuit over iMessage's lost texts, says Judge Koh

Apple must face lawsuit over iMessage's lost texts, says Judge Koh
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Nov 11, 2014, 03:40 PM
 
Apple will have to face a lawsuit charging that it didn't warn people they would lose text messages if they switched away from the iPhone, US District Judge Lucy Koh has ordered. The plaintiff in the case, Adrienne Moore, says that iOS' poor handling of text messages interfered with her contract with Verizon, which she kept after switching from an iPhone 4 to a Samsung Galaxy S5 in April. Koh argues that Moore has the right to show that Apple disrupted the contract and broke California's unfair competition law, and that she doesn't have to claim an "absolute right to receive every text message." The judge has, however, dismissed some claims linked to another state consumer protection law.

In court documents, Apple says it never asserted that the Messages app or the iMessage service would recognize when an iPhone user switched to a different platform. "Apple takes customer satisfaction extremely seriously, but the law does not provide a remedy when, as here, technology simply does not function as plaintiff subjectively believes it should," the company adds.

Only earlier this week did it launch a web tool for delinking a phone number from iMessage. Under normal circumstances, the association lets people communicate seamlessly with each other even if one person is on an iPhone and the other is using a device like a Mac or an iPad. The trouble is that if an iPhone owner decides to switch to a phone based on Android or Windows, iMessage will often direct texts from other iPhones to that person's now-phantom iMessage account.

Moore is seeking class-action status and unspecified damages.
     
prl99
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Nov 11, 2014, 03:59 PM
 
iMessage is a unique Apple protocol/communications system. They don't have to make it work on any other platform. iMessage was continuing to work as designed, it's just that the person got rid of their iPhone so it didn't have anywhere to go. There are so many similar processes that only work when you use a specific vendors product. Why does Judge Koh feel it broke CA's unfair competition law? To her, everything Apple does is wrong. When will she get a clue that they operate like everyone else.
     
DiabloConQueso
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Nov 11, 2014, 05:07 PM
 
I'm curious to know whether there are ex-iOS/iMessage users that switched away from iPhones to Windows or Android devices who did not deactivate iMessage first and successfully received text messages on their new devices.

In other words, if you don't follow the iMessage deactivation protocol, are you guaranteed not to receive text messages on your new device, or is it somewhat random and unpredictable?
     
jdonahoe
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Nov 11, 2014, 05:09 PM
 
I'm suing Microsoft because all my applications from my old Windows Mobile phone didn't transfer to my iPhone. I didn't know that they wouldn't be on the appstore. It's a breach of my trust! I'm going after Google next about the android apps not transferring......
     
pottymouth
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Nov 11, 2014, 06:10 PM
 
Disappointing, but not at all surprising. Has Judge Koh ever shown anything but complete technological incompetency and blatant anti-Apple bias? No. It's business as usual for the CA courts.
     
Paul Huang
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Nov 11, 2014, 06:49 PM
 
What a dumb ass. As if Lexus must warn the owners that their parts would no longer work when they switch to a BMW.

Yes, a new 'class action'. A class formed by the dumb and clueless.
     
que_ball
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Nov 11, 2014, 11:59 PM
 
Well, most of the argument is kind of junk.

I think the one big problem is that when you no longer had your iphone you were essentially screwed. There was almost no way to fix the issue after the fact once you no longer had access to an iphone you could use to restore your backup and then go through steps to deregister your imessage account from your number back then. Calling Apple wouldn't work since the staff on their support lines did not get access to do anything to fix it on the server side. Now that they have published a tool to remove the registration data from their server it fixes that problem.

I guess the other time you have to problem is when you transfer the number to another carrier that is not compatible with your old iphone. So switching over to Verizon on a new Android phone from AT&T would give you this problem. Basically you would have to convince a friend on that network let you erase their phone and restore it under your account and then activate the phone on your account so the number would match your old imessage account to remove the old registration which would be a touch situation. Easier to solve on a SIM based carrier where you could pop your SIM card into another iphone device but you still have to find someone willing to let you erase their phone and do extensive fiddling with the phone if you had already sold the old one or it was broken.

One thing I wonder about is why Apple would maintain the imessage registration when the old number has been offline for a long time. Why not fall back to returning a not registered result when someone looks up to see if that number is active after the phone has been offline for a week? People would still be able to send messages as SMS in that case and when your phone returned online again it could start responding the device is imessage capable again after that. So you wouldn't get texts for a week at most if you forget to de-register from imessage before selling the old phone or switching carriers etc.
     
Paul Huang
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Nov 12, 2014, 03:31 AM
 
User error. I never do anything important over text.

There ain't no fixin' stupid.
     
Paul Huang
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Nov 12, 2014, 03:32 AM
 
Oh yeah, let's bring out the 'do not use this hairdryer in the shower' label.
     
thinkman
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Nov 12, 2014, 01:01 PM
 
Why do all Apple lawsuits end up in this "biased against Apple" witches court?
     
DiabloConQueso
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Nov 12, 2014, 01:56 PM
 
Because she's a Judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California, and Apple is based out of Sacramento.
     
   
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