Apple, AT&T face class-action lawsuits over lack of MMS on iPhone

A class-action lawsuit has been filed in the district court of Louisiana, and another one in the Southern district of Illinois, against Apple and AT&T. The reason for the suits is the lack of MMS on the iPhone. Both class-action suits have identical language to describe the complaint against the two firms. "Apple advertised heavily that the new version of iPhone, the 3G, aswell as the even newer version, the 3GS, would allow MMS," the suitsread. "Apple's print and video advertisements in and on television, theInternet, radio, newspapers, and direct mailers all touted theavailability of MMS." The Louisiana filing says that "The only excuse offered by AT&T and Apple is a mouse print disclaimer on the web site, in (a) barely readable font which reads 'MMS Support from AT&T coming in late summer."

The handset's firmware upgrade to version 3.0 added MMS support to the phone among other new features. But it remains up to AT&T to actually "turn on" the service and the carrier continues to say that it will support MMS on the handset by late summer. Apple will not respond to questions from the press. Each plaintiff is seeking damages in the amount that they paid for their iPhone 3G or 3GS and both suits say that the impact of the "controversy" exceeds $5 million dollars. The Louisiana filing states that at least 10,000 people will be joining the class while the Illinois suit is expecting class membership of around 100,000 individuals.

Both firms together remain as defendants in a New York filed lawsuit that claims that the AT&T 3G network does not have the bandwidth advertised by the carrier, and that the iPhone is prone to getting physical defects.

source: InformationWeek, AppleInsider