Apple has been spending a lot of time in court the past few years, but the company just avoided another potentially costly lawsuit this week, after a federal judge shot down a group’s request to sue Apple over lost text messages.
A former iPhone user filed a lawsuit against Apple in San Jose, California, claiming iMessage interfered with the delivery of her texts when she switched to an Android phone. The Plaintiff, Adrienne Moore, requested to have the case proceed as a group lawsuit, but U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh ruled that it’s not clear enough that all proposed members suffered any inconvenience due to the iMessage interference.
In a copy of her ruling obtained by Bloomberg, Judge Koh wrote that even Moore is right is claiming iMessage has “systematic flaws that could result in the disruption of text messaging services, that determination does not assist the court in determining whether iMessage actually caused the proposed class members to suffer any interference.”
The lawsuit claimed Apple was penalizing customers who switch from iPhone to Android. It also claims that Apple failed to disclose that switch from iOS to Android would cause an interference in text messages. For it’s part, Apple says it never claimed iOS 5 iMessage service was designed to recognize when iPhone users jumped ship to other companies’ devices. Apple released a tool late last year that allows users to deregister a phone number from iMessage.
