Apple (AAPL, Financial) faced a lawsuit over user space on its devices. Many complaints were registered regarded the space of the iOS 8 takes up on iPhones and iPods. It is said that the upgrade of the operating system has consumed more space than the tech firm announced. The plaintiffs claim Apple’s advertising makes a wrong interpretation about the amount of space the latest os iOS 8 takes on its products.
Apple has yet to issue any official comment on the lawsuit. The complaint has been filed in California by Miami residents Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara who say that iOS 8 can occupy up to 23.1% of the memory available on some Apple devices.
In addition, upgrading devices from the earlier iOS 7 to 8 can cause people to lose up to 1.3 gigabytes of memory, said papers filed in support of the legal action.
The amount of memory taken up by iOS 8 can mean users run out of storage and, the pair allege, this is helping Apple force people to sign up for its fee-based iCloud storage system.
“The defendant fails to disclose to consumers that as much as 23.1% of the advertised storage capacity of the devices will be consumed by iOS 8 and unavailable for consumers when consumers purchase devices that have iOS 8 installed,” wrote Jonas P Mann of U.S. law firm Audet & Partners in a complaint filed in the northern district of California.
The latest iOS update which is claimed as “Biggest iOS release ever” is facing connectivity issues for some devices which was fixed after two updates. Anyways the problem with the latest iOS 8 is that it eats a large amount of memory which forces the users to delete some of its memory.
It's not the first time Apple had been facing the lawsuit. It faced the same issue in 2012 with its iPods. Even Microsoft faced it in the case of tablets.
The legal complaint revolves around iOS 8 and the amount of memory it reserves for itself on iPods, iPhones and iPads.
The complaint alleges that it takes up so much space that far less than advertised is left for people to store their own data.
The lawsuit is seeking millions of dollars in damages for those using Apple devices facing the storage squeeze.
So far, Apple has not responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit. The latest upgrade to iOS 8 was released in late September but Apple was forced to withdraw and then re-issue it because the first version meant a lot of iPhone 6 and Plus handsets could no longer make calls.
It asserts that Apple was then pressuring the purchasers of 16GB models to pay for extra storage on iCloud. "Using these sharp business tactics, [Apple] gives less storage capacity than advertised, only to offer to sell that capacity in a desperate moment, e.g., when a consumer is trying to record or take photos at a child or grandchild's recital, basketball game or wedding," the complaint reads, "To put this in context, each gigabyte of storage Apple shortchanges its customers amounts to approximately 400-500 high resolution photographs."
The class action lawsuit is seeking damages in excess of $5 million, pennies for a company with over $150 billion in cash. The company has a market cap of $641.2 billion and P/E ratio of 17. The company is currently paying at 1.72%. The AAPL stock was down-trading at 0.95% and closed at $109.33 a share on Friday.
