Apple’s iOS 15 Upgrade Conduct Violated Federal Law, Says Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

Nine iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus users urge the U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose to deny Apple’s Oct. 13 motion to dismiss their fraud class action in which they allege that Apple falsely promoted iOS 15 as improving the performance of their older devices but instead degraded the performance (see 2310160028), said their opposition Tuesday (docket 5:23-cv-03882). “Given that Apple has largely saturated the domestic market for iPhones by selling these devices to many of its target consumers, Apple can only continue to profit from these consumers if they decide they need to replace the iPhone they already have,” said their opposition. That profit motive “appears to have compelled Apple to violate federal and state laws” by tricking iPhone users, especially iPhone 7 users, to install an iOS 15 update on their devices, it said. The installation “irreversibly degraded iPhone 7’s performance to such a degree that the devices became, at a minimum annoying and frustrating to use, and at worst, functionally inoperable for certain tasks,” it said. “This trick is illegal,” it said. Apple “intentionally declined” to inform iPhone 7 users that installing iOS 15 on their phones would seriously impair them, so Apple “caused this impairment without the informed consent of iPhone 7 users,” it said. That conduct “violated federal and state laws governing computer intrusion, and state consumer protection laws prohibiting deceptive business practices,” it said. The plaintiffs seek compensation for the damage caused to their devices and a “sensible injunction” requiring Apple to provide clear notice of such damage with future iOS updates to prevent “this chronic conduct from recurring,” it said.