Lawsuit filed against Apple

After selling 1.7 million units in just the first week, Apple is now facing a class action lawsuit against its Apple iPhone 4. As reported by CNET, a suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on behalf of Kevin McCafferey, Linda Wrinn, and others. Essentially the suit accuses Apple of knowingly selling a product that is malfunctioning. They are being charged with a list of infractions including—general negligence, defect in design, manufacturing, and assembly, breach of warranty, deceptive trade practices, intentional and negligent misinterpretation, and fraud by concealment.

It is still not certain whether the signal issue is a software problem or a hardware defect. The fact that Apple has yet to release a software patch, coupled with their listing of three new “Antenna Engineer” positions on their website hints that it may be hardware issue. Apple has maintained its stance that “every” phone suffers from similar issues and that a proper case should be purchased to prevent the problem.

The lawsuit states, “Almost immediately after the purchase of their iPhone 4 devices, both McCaffrey and Wrinn began to experience significantly reduced reception and performance when handling the phones as demonstrated in Apple’s advertisements or as a reasonable person would handle a mobile telephone while making phone calls, browsing the Internet, sending text messages, or utilizing other services provided by the iPhone 4.”

The plaintiffs also cite an Apple internal memo that informs AppleCare representatives not to provide warranty service to any customers complaining of a signal issue.

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