Apple Computer’s have been hit with a lawsuit over the Companies iPod Nano music player. The suit alleges that the company purposely released the Nano and promoted it, despite being aware of the fact that its screen was defective.
The iPod Nano sized no bigger than a credit card and even smaller than the regular iPod, substituted former musical sensation, the iPod mini, and received massive acclaim from its fans globally. However, customers were found complaining very soon on web message boards alleging that the Nano’s screen scratched off too easily.
Thereby, a proposed “class action lawsuit” has been filed by consumers in San Jose, California asserting that the iPod Nano scratched too quickly on its screen, or “excessively during normal usage”. Additionally, it says that Apple Computer Inc. allegedly went ahead with the release of the product despite being aware of this defect in the Nano and also directed customers towards the product assuring them of its durability.
Nano’s defect lay in its ‘thin’ plastic resin film that covers the iPod’s screen as a shield from any scratch or other damage. The suit alleged that earlier models of iPod had thicker and more resilient coats of resin. It read, “Rather than admit the design flaw when consumers began to express widespread complaints ... Apple concealed the defect and advised class members that they would need to purchase additional equipment to prevent the screen from scratching excessively.”
Even so, Apple had confessed very recently in late September that certain iPod Nano models were having scratches on their screens too easily, yet hurled all the blame on the quality supplied by vendors, saying that such cases had been observed in a miniscule one-tenth in just 1% of the number of Nano pieces bought over that period.
The litigant identified as Jason Tomczak in the complaint purchased an iPod Nano last month and found that its screen scratched so badly that it had become impossible to even view the screen. Although Apple restored another piece on account of a battery problem, the replacement model’s screen too got illegibly scratched and Tomczak finally decided to return the Nano.
The complaint will need a judge to confer the “class action status” to it. Law firm, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP that is filing the suit, candidly stated that Apple had “failed to remedy the problem in any meaningful way”, in addition to deliberately deleting web postings concerned with similar complaints of screen scratches.
Posted
on : Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:15 GMT | Business News
By : Pippa Fielding
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