RSSAT&T and Apple hit with class action over iPhone MMS promises
By Tim Conneally | Published August 13, 2009, 3:21 PM
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Apple and AT&T in the Eastern District of Louisiana on the grounds that Apple's "print and video advertisements [for the iPhone 3G S] in and on television, the Internet, the radio, newspapers, and direct mailers all touted the availability of MMS," but the functionality remains unavailable.
The complaint, filed one week ago, says "Millions of customers, including Louisiana residents, purchased the 3G and 3G S waiting for the day in June 2009 when the new application would be available which would allow MMS. Unfortunately, after downloading the new 3.0 software update application, MMS still did not work on both the 3G and 3G S...The only excuse offered by AT&T and Apple is a mouse-print disclaimer on the Web site, in barely readable font, which reads 'MMS Support from AT&T coming in late summer.'
The complaint estimates that at least 10,000 individuals could eventually comprise the class.
Apple fans who have heard the story are already jumping on the issue. Seth Weintraub of 9 to 5 Mac said "Frankly, MMS is a dinosaur of a technology and won't be around in 5 years. It also enables telcos to charge you for something that should be free. You can accomplish everything MMS does on mobile e-mail so long as your recipient has e-mail on their phone."
However, MMS is still a common method of sharing media between phones, and the issue at hand is AT&T and Apple's alleged customer deception. The suit cites an Apple troubleshooting article under the heading, "To send and receive MMS messages on your iPhone 3G, do the following..." which links to a page showing carriers that support MMS.
"Clicking on that hyperlink leads to a page showing several countries," the suit says. "Clicking on North America and Viewing the graph for USA under the headline 'AT&T,' it shows that AT&T is not a carrier which offers MMS! Of course, AT&T is the only carrier in the United States used by the iPhone. In other words, AT&T's towers do not support MMS."
"When and if AT&T finally upgrades its towers, the millions of iPhone purchasers will get what they bargained for in terms of MMS," the complaint continues. "But in the meantime, all the millions of purchasers of the 3G and 3G S iPhone have been deceived and cheated out of what they thought they were purchasing -- a phone with MMS functionality."
besides MMS, SAVING EMAIL ATTACHMENTS to phone and SEND ATTACHMENTS w/ mail app(other than pics)!! please why do I have to Jailbreak my phone just to have basic features??
cydia = "attachment saver" and "iFile", these 2 apps COMPLETE the iphone.
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|Maybe if they add MMS then all the app's that compete with MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) would need to be removed from the iTunes store..
Or can they be selective over which services compete with ATT?
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|If anyone bought the iPhone just for MMS, then I could see them being involved in the lawsuit. Otherwise people are just jumping on the lawsuit bandwagon for no reason.
You can do the same thing just as easily with email.
Even if its not delivered by the end of the summer, I'm sure there is some other small text somewhere that covers them.
It's these kinds of lawsuits that just waste the courts time, make lawyers rich and in the end make no difference to the companies involved.
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|I find it extremely funny that you guys in the US can't get MMS sorted out. I suspect the only reason it was ever omitted in the first place had nothing to do with Apple saying we prefer e-mail over MMS, but rather AT&T saying we don't like MMS and out network can't support it. THAT'S what had a knock on effect and affected every other country who had the iPhone.
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|What's really amusing is that their network *can* support it.... They have it working on other models.
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|You are correct that they can handle current MMS from regular phones that are on the network. My "Assumption" is that from what I have read, internet and texting on the iPhone far surpassed what ATT expected and they are aftaid that the extra bandwidth for pic messages or MMS would overload thier network. Again, this is my take from what I have read from many articles.
As for it being Apples fault? No, I don't think it is, as it works in other places. I lay the blame wholey on ATT.
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|I guess I meant that AT&T's infrastructure couldn't support the strain that would be placed upon it with MMS.
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|Apple hit as well?? We got MMS here in Canada (Rogers) so it's obviously AT&T's problem. Oh I see, the small-print-disclaimer-BS lawsuit. That bird will never fly.
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|Why?
Target the one who marketed it...and the network that is utterly failing to deliver it.
Sounds logical to me.
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|No. Phil Schiller in June said it would be available by the end of the summer. Apple.com says the same thing. Summer ends September 19 at 11:59PM so there's still plenty of time left.
Now that sounds logical to me.
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|Dont forget we have been PAYING for mms since the first iPhone. We had no choice, pay for the mms or you just dont get an iPhone.
This is much deeper then ATT slacking off, I personally have been paying for MMS since the first iPhone. They are forcing us to have MMS on our plan even tho the phone didn't support it. Now it supports it and they still cant get it together and let us use it.
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|Check their advertising prior to launch... :)
...of course, advertising and logic rarely have anything to do with eachother...
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|Did you guys finally chase internetworld7 out of here by voting down his comments?
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|...you've called him now. I'm sure he'll be prancing along shortly...
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|internetworld7
internetworld7
internetwo-*thwork*
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|*laughing*
Awesome. Haven't seen Beetlejuice in ages.
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|It's not Sept. 22nd yet, so they shouldn't file lawsuits until summer is finished. If the marketing people say "late summer" that means the day before autumn/fall. It's not like $3.99 is that much less than $4.00, but should people be fooled either way into believing the marketing talk?
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|AT&T towers do not support MMS?! Wait, none of AT&T phones can send or receive MMS messages?! Isn't that simply...well...a lie?!
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|It's not really a lie, it's just yet another claimant who doesn't really understand technology... well... at all. Being misinformed before you start a case is simply idiotic, still being misinformed during is mind-numbingly thick.
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|Well Well Mr. Skinner then enlighten all of us who you say DON'T understand technology.
As a previous tech for ATT, I can tell you the towers DO support it.
Now we're all awaiting your "gospel" response.
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|This is so ridiculous. It's yet another "Sue somebody to make me rich" scheme.
Please read this link regarding the upcoming iPhone 3.1 firmware update:
http://www.readwriteweb....ms_via_iphone_os_31.php
If ever there were a capricious lawsuit, this one certainly counts as one. If people really need to send multimedia content to others using their iPhone, how about using the iPhone's built-in email or using one of the (often 'free') apps from the App store? Yes, these are stop-gap measures until MMS is finally activated at AT&T an on the iPhone, but come on...
What a waste of bandwidth, time and money.
'Nuff said
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|One more article of interest:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10260012-37.html
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|@ TBNTX - The link you posted is totally inaccurate. The iPhone 3.0 update released for AT&T iPhones fully supports MMS. This means that while the iPhone 3.0 software makes it possible to send multimedia messages right now, AT&T's network will block the message and prevent it from going through. In terms of the features being offered, the iPhone 3.0 software in the USA is identical to the 3.0 software released in other countries.
In other words: This is NOT Apple's fault in any way, shape or form. It is entirely AT&T's fault.
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|That doesn't matter at all as Apple are party to the advertising of the product and it's capabilities and stand to profit from the sale of said product.
If their advertisement acknowledges that MMS won't be available for whatever reason for AT&T customers then all that needs to be done is to prove they didn't go far enough in making the fact known and they automatically become complicit.
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|Sign me up also. Class Action Lawsuits do make Lawers rich, but they set a precidence for the future. Lack of MMS has cost me countless hours and lost revenue. We used MMS to help us verify items and values at auctions and sales. It was a simple process, MMS the pic of the model/serial number and or the item itslef and my valuers would find the value and reply, simple. now its an E-mail process that takes much more time and effort. The fact that I sold my RAZR before I found that MMS didn't work on the iPhone left me stuck with the iphone. When every other phone has MMS it becomes the standard, like you expect a phone to make phone calls, I expected a high tech iPhone to have MMS.
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|That's your fault for buying the POS iPhone!
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|MMS and iPhone work great with 3.0 software on the old AT&T network (now Rogers) in Canada. Cough... So it not the iPhone. Tethering works as well and that feature saved my bacon when we moved house and ISP screwed up DSL line at the new house.
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|When are people going to learn that all these class action lawsuits only makes the lawyers rich.
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|Yeah, but every once in a while it teaches some company a much needed lesson....
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|Sign me up! Today an AT&T rep told me that the fault is with Apple 3.0 software. And Apple says that AT&T is to blame. A pox on both their houses.
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|Out of curiosity, does anyone have information on how to join the class action? I'll never personally be an iphone user, but know plenty of people with them that were told 3.0 would have mms. For the life of me I don't understand the need for mms, but that's just me.
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|For those who feel they've been slighted by Apple & AT&T all I can say is "There is an app for that". (You just need to pay) For those who are too ignorant to know how to reconfigure your iPhone to do MMS via the guides feely available on the internet, or those who simply dont want to pay for an app to do mms I suggest you go back to sleep untill the "end of summer". There are ways around everything, even removing the data plan if you dont want it you just need to look for the solutions!
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|Looks like they may be releasing this very soon. I just found a site that has images of what it is going to look like. I am very excited
here is the site: http://www.blogswagger.com/?p=24
if that link does not work, this is the site:http://www.blogswagger.com/?p=24
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