Back in July of 2010, John Browning, Jacob Balthazar and Claudia Keller filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple claiming that the iPad shutdown when used in direct sunlight due to heating issues.
The crux of their case? Apple’s marketing for the iPad — which, as you might recall, was heavily slanted towards e-reading at the time — (debatably)said that “reading on iPad is just like reading a book.” Books don’t overheat! Books don’t shut down!
It was a weird tack to take, frankly. If Apple’s iPad was designed with heating issues, more so than other mobile gadgets, there should be plenty of genuine proof of such without dragging in such an empty marketing phrase… which certainly was vetted by Apple’s legal team anyway. Yes, reading on the iPad isn’t like reading on a book, in that books aren’t electronic devices, but it is like reading a book in that both use words, punctuation marks and pages… which is all Apple ever had to say it meant.
Anyway, it looks like a judge has agreed that the initial filing has no merit, since U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel has dismissed the trio’s charges as “inadequate.” However, curiously, it’s not because Fogel thinks the “reading on iPad” claim is without merit… rather, it’s because he wants the specific advertisement being quoted to be cited.
The group has 30 days to file an amended complaint with the court, for all the good it’ll do.
