Apple Class Action Says Company Intentionally Broke FaceTime To Save Money

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UPDATE 5: November 2020, the Apple FaceTime class action settlement is now open. Click here to learn more.

UPDATE 4: On Aug. 21, 2019, a federal judge has rejected Apple’s bid to dismiss a class action lawsuit from customers who claim that the company intentionally prevented FaceTime from working with older operating systems.

UPDATE 3: On Oct. 4, 2018, Apple seeks dismissal of a FaceTime class action lawsuit alleging that it purposefully disabled the video chat feature on older iPhones.

UPDATE 2: On Sept. 18, 2018, California iPhone users won Class certification for their lawsuit claiming that Apple intentionally made FaceTime unusable on iPhones with older operating systems.

UPDATE: On July 28, 2017, a California federal judge denied a motion by Apple Inc. to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging it “broke” FaceTime on iPhones that used older operating systems, essentially forcing them to lose FaceTime or download a software update that slowed down the smartphone.

A California woman has filed a claim against Apple saying the company intentionally disabled FaceTime on iOS 6 to force users to upgrade to iOS 7 as part of a scheme to save the company money.

The proposed class action lawsuit filed on Feb. 2 in California federal court alleges that Apple wanted to force users to upgrade in an effort to cut down costs on a data services deal with Akamai, which ran third-party servers used for handling FaceTime data.

According to plaintiff Christina Grace, Apple developed a new version of FaceTime in response to a lawsuit from VirnetX, which accused the company of patent infringement. The new version of FaceTime required users to switch to iOS 7, but that introduced performance problems for users who owned early-model iPhones.

“Upon shifting 100% of FaceTime call volume to the relay method, Apple’s relay usage soared,” the lawsuit says. “As a result, Apple began to incur multi-million dollar monthly charges for its use of Akamai’s servers.”

The class action lawsuit points to an internal Apple email chain in which an engineering manager mentions that they were looking at the Akamai contract for the upcoming year and understood that Apple “did something” to reduce usage of Akamai’s services.

Another engineer reportedly responded by pointing out that iOS 6 relied a lot on Akamai’s services and that the company “broke iOS 6” and the only way to fix FaceTime was to upgrade to iOS 7.

The lawsuit also claims that forcing iPhone 4S and 4 users to upgrade to iOS 7 was harmful to them because the software would allegedly crash more and run slower.

Specifically, Grace says Apple engineers caused a digital certificate needed to run FaceTime on iOS 6 to prematurely expire on April 16, 2014, effectively disabling the video calling service for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users not running the new operating system.

“Rather than revealing the truth about the cause and impetus of the FaceTime break, Apple claimed that FaceTime had suffered a ‘bug,’ and that to regain the ability to use FaceTime, users needed to transition their device to iOS 7,” the 36-page complaint states.

Installing iOS 7 was problematic for millions of iPhone users, Grace says, because the new system was essentially incompatible with older devices.

“For iPhone4 and iPhone 4S users, for example, the coerced move to iOS 7 subjected their devices to slowness, system crashes, erratic behavior and/or the elimination of their ability to use critical functions on their iPhone,” the complaint states.

Grace is bringing the class action lawsuit on grounds that Apple violated California’s unfair competition law and that the company committed “trespass to chattels,” a legal wrong of intentionally interfering with another person’s possessions.

The plaintiff is seeking to represent a certified Class of consumers who owned an Apple iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S that was operating on iOS 6 or an earlier operating system, and therefore lost the ability to use Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing features when Apple intentionally broke FaceTime for iOS 6 and earlier operating systems on April 16, 2014.

Along with punitive damages, the lawsuit is asking the court for an award of restitution and disgorgement.

Grace and the proposed Class are represented by Allan Steyer, Jill M. Manning, D. Scott Macrae of Steyer Lowenthal Boodrookas Alvarez & Smith LLP; and Bruce L. Simon, Daniel L. Warshaw, and Alexander L. Simon of Pearson Simon & Warshaw LLP.

The Apple FaceTime Class Action Lawsuit is Christina Grace v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:17-cv-00551-NC, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division.