A U.S. District judge has decided that Apple will have to face a US federal lawsuit over complaints that it prevented users from receiving text messages after switching from iPhone to Android, according to a report from Reuters.
The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, claims that Apple interfered with the plaintiff’s Verizon wireless service by not informing customers that switching to an Android device could interfere with sending and receiving messages.
The problem exists with how Apple’s messaging app handles the switch from its iPhone to iPhone iMessaging platform to traditional SMS text messages when contacts switch to new devices. Apple automatically defaults to the less expensive iMessage to save users from paying for text messages, but if a contact happens to switch to another platform even temporarily— Android for example— the app sometimes does not automatically recognize and switch back to text messages leaving users on either end unaware that messages aren’t getting through.
Apple reportedly responded to the lawsuit in court filings noting that the “technology simply does not function as plaintiff subjectively believes it should.”
The news comes just as Apple this week introduced a new tool that allows users to easily deregister their phone number from iMessage to correct the potential issue with undelivered messages.
In court papers, Apple said it never claimed that its iMessage service and Messages application, which ran with iOS 5, would recognize when iPhone users switched to rival devices.
“Apple takes customer satisfaction extremely seriously, but the law does not provide a remedy when, as here, technology simply does not function as plaintiff subjectively believes it should,” the Cupertino, California-based company said.
