Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) got itself into yet another legal fray when a woman filed a class-action suit against the iPhone maker, alleging that a friend’s text from an iPhone didn’t reach her Android-based phone. Adrienne Moore said she did not get messages on her Android phone because her number was still linked to her earlier iPhone in Apple’s system and thus, the message was sent through Apple’s iMessage service, which gets around the 160 character limits of standard SMS messages.
Apple failed to disclose the issue
She also complained that though Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) gets messages to other iPhone users, it does not deliver to the Galaxy S5, which she is using now. In her suit filed in San José, Calif. on May 15, she said that Apple did not reveal this to her–that message delivery could face some sort of glitch if she starts using any other phone apart from the iPhone. This, according to her, is interference with a mobile carrier and unfair competition, according to Patently Apple, which has a copy of the complaint.
Moore said that for those who switch from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to any other device are deprived of the full benefits of their wireless service contracts. She has asked for compensation of up to $5 million, which has the possibility to increase if more complainants join the action and it is successful.
Moore not the only one
Apart from Moore, other users have faced similar issues, as their friends sent them messages through the iPhone, but non-iPhone users never receive it. One reason for such a hiccup is that, when iMessage is activated on an iPhone, the number is linked with the service. When a user changes smartphones but retains his old number, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s system tries to deliver the message but fails to do so because software on the other platform cannot accept the message. Also the number continues to be associated with iMessage if the user is using the app on any other Apple device.
Through iMessage, which was launched in 2011, users can link a particular email address or phone number to the service and send messages of different sizes to other users of the iMessage service. The app has become increasingly popular among iPhone users, with more than 450 billion iMessages being sent by April 2013 and more than 2 billion messages being sent daily at that time.
