When owners of the iPhone 3G started reporting massive performance issues with iOS 4, we knew it was only a matter of time before the first lawsuit dropped, and here it is, lodged by plaintiff Biana Wofford in the Superior Court of California for San Diego.
The lawsuit’s even crazier than what we expected though: it thinks Apple conspired to make iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G suck so that users would be forced to upgrade to a new model.
According to Wofford’s complaint, the flurry of complaints that iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G lead to extremely slow and buggy performance was anticipated by Apple, and they had planned all along to use iOS 4 to turn her iPhone 3G into a “device with little more use than that of a paper weight.”
“The true fact of the matter … is that the iOS 4 is a substantial ‘downgrade’ for earlier iPhone devices and renders many of them virtually useless iBricks,” Wofford complains.
It seems a bit much to us, but Wofford does have one seemingly valid complaint.
“Even though Apple has actual knowledge of thousands of complaints from iPhone 3G/3GS consumers, Apple does not allow for those same users/consumers of third generation devices to download and re-install earlier and optimized iOS3.x operating system without resorting to ‘hacker’ tactics that will void Apple warranties and violate iPhone user agreements,” Wofford claims.
We can understand why Apple wants to keep people on the latest version of iOS their phone can support, but Wofford has a point: being able to fall back on earlier software versions when a user runs into a problem is just basic troubleshooting. The problem is, since Apple uses iOS upgrade versions to patch jailbreak exploits, they’re never going to allow this functionality to downgrade an iOS device… which ironically then forces legit users who want to have the option to downgrade in case of problems with an update no choice but to hack their devices.
Wofford is seeking class-action status, which a judge will have to approve if this is going to go to trial.
