A pair of phone users from Florida sued Apple for misleading phone storage information for its mobile touch devices.
Plaintiffs Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara say the technology giant falsely advertises the device storage, saying it’s 16GB when the operating system already uses up a fifth of the space. The two filed the case in California, asking the federal judge to designate the lawsuit as a class action so other people can join.
Besides false advertising, the pair also accused the company for “unfair, unlawful, and fraudulent business acts or practices.” The lawsuit is asking millions of dollars in damages for the limiting storage. Only 400-500 photos consume approximately 1GB using the Apple device.
On the complaint filed on Dec. 29, the plaintiffs explained that for the 16GB space of low-end Apple devices, 23.1% of the memory is already used for the operating system and other pre-installed applications. This leaves users less than the full amount of space in their devices for their own content. Upgrading the operating system from iOS 7 to 8 can also cause users 1.3GB more.
They further said that consumers don’t expect such discrepancy between the advertised and actual storage space. According to the complainants, the limited storage forces Apple users to sign up for the iCloud storage for a fee.
“Using these sharp business tactics, (Apple) gives less storage capacity than advertised, only to offer to sell that capacity in a desperate moment, eg when a consumer is trying to record or take photos at a child or grandchild's recital, basketball game or wedding,” said in the lawsuit.
However, the complainants said that Apple prohibits users to use other cloud storage aside from iCloud, which turns out to be false. There are other vendors available for Apple users such as Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft’s OneDrive.
Apple has declined to comment on the issue.
