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Apple offers store credit to settle Canadian lawsuits

Apple continues to very successful in the marketplace with its class leading iPod line of portable media players. However, some of Apple’s claims on battery life and storage capacity of its iPod devices have led to suits being filed.

Apple Canada has reportedly offered $3.45 million in Apple store credits to Canadians who bought iPod’s in the first, second or third generations before June 24, 2004. Prior to that date, Apple marketing claimed that the iPod’s had a battery life of 8 hours between charges. The suit contends battery life is only 3 hours.

Two lawsuits were filed over the battery life in Canada with one filed in Montreal and the other filed in Toronto. The Toronto suit was granted class-action status by the Ontario Superior Court while the Montreal suit was denied class-action status by a Quebec court.

Despite the differences in the rulings on the status of the suits over battery life, Apple has offered as many as 80,000 customers a $44 credit that can be used in its store. $44 won’t go far in the Apple store on many of its products, so some will see the credit as simply a coupon to entice users into spending more money in the store.

Battery life isn’t the only feature drawing legal fire on the iPod. A suit is pending that was filed by a student in Montreal named David Bitton. Bitton filed suit because Apple claimed his iPod Nano had 8GB of storage and it only had 7.45GB of space available when new. Bitton is seeking either a full refund of $220 of the purchase price or a 7.5% refund and $75 in damages. The suit sounds like a lot of work for such little return.

Apple’s iPod isn’t the only item that has drawn legal fire for misleading marketing claims. Apple has a suit pending in the U.S. over deceptive marketing that claimed its MacBook LCDs could reproduce “millions of colors” when in fact they could only display 262,144 colors.

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1000 vs 1024
By Moishe on 5/9/2008 1:56:33 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Bitton filed suit because Apple claimed his iPod Nano had 8GB of storage and it only had 7.45GB of space available when new. Bitton is seeking either a full refund of $220 of the purchase price or a 7.5% refund and $75 in damages. The suit sounds like a lot of work for such little return.


I actually think that this is right kind of suit if your agenda is to have the industry properly show the storage size.

The guy is basically saying, "your numbers are invalid and I want my money back". By not asking for just a little more he's making it clear that he's not just another lawsuit gold-digger type.

The numbers ARE invalid but I personally think this kind of suit is pointless. The price of storage is cheap enough that this just doesn't matter.




RE: 1000 vs 1024
By Moishe on 5/9/2008 2:05:13 PM , Rating: 1
I actually think that these kind of suits are good because consumers are essentially forcing manufacturers to be honest and truthful about their "stats". Not a bad thing.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By FITCamaro on 5/9/08, Rating: 0
RE: 1000 vs 1024
By barjebus on 5/9/2008 2:31:46 PM , Rating: 1
It's misleading advertising, which as far as I know is if not outright illegal, then fairly frowned upon.

IMO this is like amazon selling the lord of the rings trilogy (or maybe lets go with wheel of time because we're talking 7.5% being missing) in a boxset and one of the books is missing, even though it's clearly labeled as being the box set of the wheel of time, or lord of the rings. Now, should I have to go to the effort of packaging up my purchase again, shipping it back, and then waste my time trying to convince amazon to refund my shipping costs, then go out and find a product that isn't LIED about?

I don't think so. If you're telling me product contains X number of goods, and it really doesn't, I shouldn't have to go through the hassle of returning it, nor should I have to spend my time researching that company to see if they're a deceptive advertiser or not.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By omnicronx on 5/9/2008 3:43:13 PM , Rating: 2
Its misleading because of the battery life was only lasting around 3 hours instead of 10, not because of the MB issue.
It all goes back to the megabinarybytes vs megabytes (powers of 10 vs powers of 2). As both are accepted standards but have different uses, technically what Apple or any HD manufacturer for that matter are not doing anything illegal.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By joemoedee on 5/9/2008 4:32:17 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
2). As both are accepted standards but have different uses, technically what Apple or any HD manufacturer for that matter are not doing anything illegal.


Well, Western Digital settled their class action lawsuit that was filed under the same premise. (Advertised drive space != actual drive space)

Seagate lost theirs, previously listed on DT. http://www.dailytech.com/A+Download+for+Your+Troub...

So it's a good chance Apple will lose this one... However, one part of the article is off.

"Bitton is seeking either a full refund of $220 of the purchase price or a 7.5% refund and $75 in damages. The suit sounds like a lot of work for such little return."

Actually he's looking for the amount of 7.5% for all folks in Quebec that purchased a "mid-advertised" iPod. Here's the document filed: http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blog...


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By FITCamaro on 5/9/08, Rating: -1
RE: 1000 vs 1024
By Inkjammer on 5/9/2008 6:03:36 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
It is not misleading.

And it's not misleading when the EPA says your car's "average" MPG rating is 26MPG but even in ideal conditions you can only get 18 - 20. That doesn't make it even less of a gip to the consumer when they realize that the "8GB" advertised is not the "8GB" they receive.

Your typical Best Buy consumer seems to have trouble figuring out that the Nigerians really don't want to give them $100 mil. How do you expect them to understand Gb -vs- GB?


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By lightfoot on 5/9/2008 9:43:34 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
How do you expect them to understand Gb -vs- GB


Actually Gb vs. GB is a different argument that applies to data transfer rates. Gb is Gigabit, whereas GB is Gigabyte. A GB is exactly eight times bigger than a Gb.

This confusion comes from the fact that Giga scientifically means Billion 10^9. So in theory a Gigabyte (GB should be one billion bytes.) This is exactly how Apple measured the space and advertised it as Gigabytes. However Windows measures disk space in multiples of 2. One kilobyte is considered 2^10 bytes (1024 bytes = 1 KB.) A megabyte is 2^10 kilobytes or 2^20 bytes (1,048,576 bytes = 1 MB.) A gigabyte is 2^10 megabytes or 2^30 bytes (1,073,741,824 bytes = 1 GB.) Thus Windows will show .9313 GB for every one billion bytes on the storage device.

I'm not sure how Apple displays memory capacity, but Microsoft usually shows the amount of disk space in actual bytes followed by the GB measurement.

Capacity: 2,000,000,000 bytes 1.86 GB


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By xsilver on 5/9/2008 9:59:57 PM , Rating: 4
If we go down this slippery slope in a year we're going to complain why our ipod 7.45gb isnt renamed the ipod 7.4570175017561265961235098172850 gb ?

Put that on a billboard!
"the new ipod - by the time you finish reading the name, the universe would have collapsed on itself"

It would be like going to the supermarket and saying "I bought 1kg of apples, why are there 60grams of seeds? I want my money back"


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By eeto on 5/9/2008 2:42:07 PM , Rating: 3
Last thing we want is to ask consumers to suck up with marketing techniques, encouraging companies to bend information - there are enough marketing gimmicks in this world fooling the average consumer.

Not a lot of places offer product return, or no hassle returning, that is something you assume it's within his power. If all options unavailable, he'll end up being one pissed off customer.

I personally never liked the 1000mb = 1gig ruling. Yes, I have been buying HDDs for over a decade now and I just totally fail adjusting my conscience that the 750gigs will be 690ish gigs. Until today, I still see that practice of "rounding off" is totally pathetic.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By FITCamaro on 5/9/2008 3:48:27 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Not a lot of places offer product return, or no hassle returning, that is something you assume it's within his power.


Really. Every major retailer offers a 14-30 day money back return policy. The only exception is software, CDs, DVDs, and video games for obvious reasons.

He lives in Canada, not the 3rd world where you might have to buy an iPod off the black market.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By eeto on 5/9/2008 4:43:10 PM , Rating: 2
and WHAT makes you think I don't live in Canada!?

Gadget deals don't usually come from major retailer. Major retailers only know how to major rip you off.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By Omega215D on 5/10/2008 10:42:05 PM , Rating: 2
No, here in NYC all non-Apple stores say you cannot return any Apple product to them. Your only recourse is to take it up with Apple and Apple won't take returns of purchases made in another store. I went through and endless loop of trying to return my MacBook and ended up keeping it.

I wonder if Canada allows stores to do this.


RE: 1000 vs 1024
By mondo1234 on 5/9/2008 9:15:59 PM , Rating: 1
This is not unusual for "any" industry. Go measure a 2x4 at Home Depot (1.5x3.5), or ask to see the 25 gallon trees (or the 5 gallon trees) and show me the math. Let me know if you ever get that burger the way its pictured on the billboard with the meat hangin past the bun! No news here....this is just business as usual.


What a racket
By lightfoot on 5/9/2008 1:58:33 PM , Rating: 5
Apple has a great scam going - They are so sorry for selling you a defective product that they will give you a coupon to buy more of their defective products. Classic!




RE: What a racket
By FITCamaro on 5/9/08, Rating: 0
RE: What a racket
By lightfoot on 5/9/2008 2:32:06 PM , Rating: 2
That depends on your definition of what defective is.

I would say a product is defective if it doesn't do what it claims to do.

Maybe it is just fraud or false advertising, but it still makes the product seem defective.


RE: What a racket
By FITCamaro on 5/9/2008 3:37:37 PM , Rating: 1
Defective means the product is inoperable and unable to be used properly. Less battery life than claimed is false advertising.


RE: What a racket
By bohhad on 5/9/2008 8:23:16 PM , Rating: 2
not according to merriam-webster at least. the dictionary lists the definition of 'defect' as an imperfection that impairs worth or utility, or a lack of something necessary for completeness, adequacy, or perfection. if you just bought a brand new car and half the paint was missing, you wouldn't call that defective, even tho it was still perfectly drivable?


RE: What a racket
By Alexvrb on 5/10/2008 2:56:25 PM , Rating: 2
Actually he's right, its more a case of false advertising, not a defect. Your example would make sense if one iPod got 3 hour battery life, but others get around 8 as advertised. Furthermore, a product isn't defective just because a company lies about what it can do. It still works as intended, its just that they lied about its capabilities. If I sell you a laptop and I tell you it can teleport you to the moon (whether or not I know it can't do this is largely irrelevant), but it works perfectly otherwise, is the laptop defective? Or did I advertise a feature falsely?

If you still can't understand the difference, you're defective. :P


RE: What a racket
By bohhad on 5/11/2008 11:21:01 AM , Rating: 2
"lack of something necessary for completeness"

then yes, i'd call your laptop defective for not being feature-complete. i partly agree with fitcamaro tho, they are falsely advertising a defective product as non-defective.

i think you're arguing semantics. the ipod doesnt work as intended, it was intended for 8 hours battery life, and some units aren't capable of that. i can't call that 'lying about its capabilities,' because that implies they knew it only had so many hours battery life, but decided to sell it as advertised anyway. apple probably thought they had it figured out correctly, and the device would get 8 hours battery life.

i believe your logic here is defective :P or maybe this is just a case of 'to-MAY-toes, to-MAH-toes.'


RE: What a racket
By eyebeeemmpawn on 5/9/2008 2:33:34 PM , Rating: 2
Not meeting the spec isn't considered a defect???


RE: What a racket
By Smartless on 5/9/2008 2:57:56 PM , Rating: 2
I agree buddy. I don't know what they're talking aboot.

Honestly they just picked a successful company to file a lawsuit. No storage device will have the number they claim especially after an OS or FAT is installed. Unless of course it actually says the absolute capacity is 7.45 gigs and after the OS he has less 7 gigs.


RE: What a racket
By Smartless on 5/9/2008 2:59:11 PM , Rating: 2
Oops replied to wrong post. Flame on!


8 gig
By Slacker17 on 5/9/2008 2:13:56 PM , Rating: 2
David Bitton should delete the os and the file system then he would have his 8 gig of storage.




RE: 8 gig
By INeedCache on 5/10/2008 1:58:25 AM , Rating: 2
Those of you who seem to be on Apple's side over the storage size issue aren't commenting on the battery life issue. Maybe the storage thing is a bit picky and frivolous, but the battery life thing totally has merit. If you bought a car and the sticker said it averaged 24 mph on the highway but you got 9, what would you do? Nothing? I doubt it. We aren't talking an insignificant amount here, 3 instead of 8 is BS. As for the $44 credit, does that amount even get you in the door at the Apple store? They're trendy and chic, don't they have a cover charge?


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