Apple introduced Wi-Fi Assist feature in iOS 9, which allowed iOS devices to automatically use cellular connection when the WiFi connection is poor. This feature ended up gobbling GBs of data for many customers who were not familiar how the feature worked, this is why Apple is facing a class-action lawsuit over Wi-Fi Assist feature of iOS 9. Now in addition to this, Apple is now facing another lawsuit over iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s automatically switching to LTE network from Wi-Fi for AT&T subscribers.
Verizon users were also experiencing the same data automatic switching to LTE issue on iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s devices, but Apple had addressed the issue with an Over-the-Air update back in September 2012. However the issue persisted with iOS 6 and iOS 7 for the AT&T users and was only fixed with iOS 8.1 update back in October 2014, states Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, the law firm.
The law firm states that when a user stream a video over Wi-Fi network for 10-20 minutes on his iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s, the video compression process is handled by the GPU and the CPU of A6 and A7 chips go into sleep mode to save battery. This is when the both devices start streaming the video over an LTE connection switching from WiFi network.
Verizon didn’t charge its customers for crossing their data limit because of this iOS bug, but AT&T did not wave off data overage charges for its affected subscribers. Since Apple failed to informed its customers about this automatic network switching, it violated the California consumer laws, argues the law firm.
Are you one of such affected iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s users? If you, you can be a part of this class-action lawsuit by signing up here.
Via [MacRumors]