Franklin v. Apple at al

TechCrunch speculated today on what was behind the class action suit filed against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama this week. As was predicted, the plaintiffs allege that Apple did not support MMS until long after the iPhone 3G was shipped, even though both Apple and AT&T advertised that the phone included the feature.

They quote the Apple Web site:

Send MMS.

Take a photo or shoot some video, then send it via Messages. You can also send audio recordings from within Messages, information from Contacts, and directions from Maps.

Once customers purchased the phone, they found out that they couldn't actually receive MMS messages on the phone but needed to go to a Web page. From the AT&T site:

Customers who are sent a MMS message and own a non-MMS capable device will receive a text message instead of an actual MMS message. The message will contain the website address of www.viewmymessage.com/1 or www.viewmymessage.com/2 as well as a user name and password. To view the MMS message, please access the website from a computer and enter the user name and password provided in the text message.

It is strangely reminiscent of the class action suit against Verizon for the lack of Bluetooth on the Motorola V710.

You can read the Apple complaint here.