ZCREED

So, I got your attention… no I do not know of any specific class-action suit against Apple over its iPhone, however I do want to say that there should be one and my story will show why.

I recently purchased an iPhone believing like many others that this device would be the long-awaited device to pwn all other devices.  Well, perhaps it’s not a commercial grade HD camcorder, but it does take decent photos for a phone.  Anyhow, the iPhone is a GPS navigator, a digital camera, an iPod, a web-browser, an email utility, a gaming platform, and a cell-phone all-in-one.  Oh, and it has plenty of add-on applications to keep you up to date on everything from stocks to the weather.  So what is the iPhone 3G missing in the midst of all these great abilities?

Stereo headsets.  Yep, you heard right.  Stereo Bluetooth Headset functionality is not available for the iPhone – while many competitors do and have been offering this functionality for over a year now.  Now you may ask why a class-action lawsuit over this?  Well for one… one of it’s most pivotal, most primary functionalities is being an audio player (an iPod).  Now that in and of itself isn’t worthy of any kind of lawsuit… it’s just evidence of very poor engineering and management of Apple’s flagship product.  What makes it worthy of lawsuit is all in the marketing.

Apple markets its product as “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR” capable as seen on its Tech Specs page and retail packaging.  Now the lay person would look at this and see ‘Bluetooth 2.0′ and think to themselves “Well that must be better than Bluetooth 1.x” as common sense would dictate.  Then they’d see ‘+ EDR’ and think, “oh cool, it supports MORE than just Blueooth 2.0 – it supports this EDR thing too – whatever that is”.  As anyone can plainly see, the customer now has a stated reason (provided by Apple) to believe that his/her Bluetooth devices should be supported on his/her shiny new iPhone.

The trick is that supporting “Bluetooth 2.0″ doesn’t mean ANY Bluetooth devices are supported at all (it only means the hardware layer is there – I just learned this myself and I am a software engineer and work with technology every day)!  The saddest part is that there are so many standards and so much misinformation out there that it is difficult for even me to keep on top of it all (another great example of this is the over-the-air cable switch to occur in February 2009).  A device could have a Bluetooth 2.0 chip inside it and state it supports Bluetooth 2.0 right on the packaging (like Apple has done) but not support a single Bluetooth device in all the world, but the packaging would still be telling the customer the truth (however so misleading that truth is).

In adding the ‘+’ in “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR”, Apple has gone so far as to say “in addition to” Bluetooth 2.0 (which in all actuality means absolutely nothing in regards to compatibility) Apple continues… “we also support EDR”.  This adds another layer of misinformation to confound the unlearned customer.  So what is EDR you are wondering.  Well, according to Wikipedia (yes, I had to look this up as I personally do not know what every acronym in the technology field stands for) EDR stands for Enhanced Data Rate (basically meaning faster transfer speeds over Blueooth 2.0).  So if you or I were to look this up, there is no inkling to explain that certain Bluetooth devices are NOT supported.

Now the question is – is it Apple’s fault OR the customers fault that the end-user (the customer) doesn’t know what this “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR” actually means (which we now know means: nothing at all)?  Also, if the customer does know what this means how are they to know what devices are supported?  A simple explanation on Apple’s site and packaging stating “Bluetooth handsfree profile supported” and can I go so far as to say “Blueooth stereo profile not supported at this time” would have made this clear to me and the over 1 million other iPhone owners before getting trapped in a multi-thousand dollar deal (you do the math) with AT&T.  Apple chose not to state this.  The fact that “Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR” actually means absolutely nothing when it comes to compatibility with other devices (such as headsets, car adapters, headphones, etc) shows Apple intentionally mislead many people to believe their devices were indeed supported when they were not – and to top it off we have no idea if Apple EVER intends to support them.

To summarize: Apple states on their packaging and website that Bluetooth devices are supported by the iPhone.  This however is only a half-truth as only the handsfree profile is supported and all other devices are not.  This is not stated anywhere in any Apple literature available to a customer prior to purchase of the iPhone and in many instances reported online – AT&T store representatives have actually told customers the false information that stereo headsets do indeed work with the iPhone.  Now this can not be blamed on Apple, but the fact that Apple does not have any literature to falsify those claims can be blamed on Apple.