In a lawsuit filed last May, disgruntled iPhone user Adrienne Moore said that switching from iPhone (and iMessage) to Android made it impossible for anyone with an iPhone to text her. iMessage had essentially hijacked her phone number. A little more than a year later, the court disagrees.
It’s an iMessage purgatory may smartphone switchers are all too familiar with. It’s a pain, and people who get stuck with it are right to be upset. On Tuesday, US District Judge Lucy H. Koh tossed out Moore’s case, saying it couldn’t proceed as a class action lawsuit since there wasn’t enough evidence to support the notion that the iMessage blockage constituted a “contractual breach or interference” with iMessage. Translation: Apple is off the legal hook over its shitty iMessage hijacking and will save lots of $$$.
The case may have lost it’s class-action status, which it argued for from the very beginning, but Apple may still face individual lawsuits. However, they will most likely settle for a much smaller sum that they would have had to pay in a group lawsuit.
Despite the court victory, Apple is aware that the pilgrimage from Apple to Android comes with a few frustrations and even released a tool back in November to make the process less painful for current and ex iPhone users. [Bloomberg via 9to5Mac]