Apple Wins Lawsuit Over iPhone Switching iMessage Problem

Apple won an important ruling yesterday against a group lawsuit filed by a former iPhone user claiming that, after the user switched to an Android phone, Apple’s messaging system interfered with the delivery of text messages (via Bloomberg).

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The lawsuit was originally filed in 2014 by plaintiff Adrienne Moore, who back then said Apple’s messaging system retained text messages sent from iPhone users and wouldn’t deliver them to her Android smartphone.

Also, Moore claimed that users switching from iPhones to Android are “penalized and unable to obtain the full benefit of their wireless-service contracts” and that Apple failed to disclose that leaving the iOS operating system in favour of Android would result in interference.

Since the lawsuit sought group status for the above claims, a favourable ruling would have opened the door to all affected users and could have also meant a nice amount of money in their pockets as the result of a possible settlement with Apple.

Even if Moore is correct in arguing 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,” Koh wrote in her ruling.

US Judge Lucy Koh, however, ruled that the lawsuit cannot proceed as a group lawsuit because it wasn’t clear enough that all proposed members suffered from the aforementioned interference stemming from Apple’s proprietary messaging system.

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