Apple Inc's new iPhone 3G drops calls and doesn't download Web pages and music at twice the rate of its predecessor as the company advertises, a consumer said in a lawsuit.
The iPhone 3G, which relies on a new high-speed worldwide standard to download data, connects to the network "less than 25 percent of the time," according to a complaint filed on Tuesday in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama, Bloomberg News reported. Plaintiff Jessica Smith seeks class-action, or group, status on behalf of other consumers. Apple advertises the iPhone 3G as being "Twice as fast. Half the price."
Smith "noticed that her Internet connection, receipt and sending of e-mail, text messages and other data transfers through the device were slower than expected and advertised," and she experienced "an inordinate amount of dropped calls," according to her complaint.
Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3G handsets in the first three days after they went on sale last month. The company has released a software update to improve network connections for the iPhone 3G after program glitches were reported to have hurt call quality. The phone competes with models from Research In Motion Ltd and Samsung Electronics Co. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.
