Apple Sued Over Faulty iPhone Button

Debra Hilton from Florida filed a class action suit against Apple alleging that the power button on the iPhone 4 has a manufacturing defect that Apple was a aware of and chose not to fix.

The suit claims that the iPhone 4’s flex cable is defective and designed to cause the power button to malfunction shortly after the 1-year warranty, forcing users to either get it repaired for $149 or pay for an entirely new device.

The complaint reads….

“The Apple iPhone 4 is plagued by a latent defect that causes its Power Button to fail, usually shortly after the 1 year warranty covering the device has expired, thereby rendering the phone unusable.

Apple knew when it manufactured, marketed, and sold the device that this defect existed, but failed to disclose it, instead touting the purported superior attributes of the telephone in Apple’s various advertisements and marketing campaigns.”

Miss Hilton claims that Apple was well aware of the problem and points out that Apple’s own community support forum is filled with hundreds of complaints from users experiencing similar power button failure issues. She then further points out that said complaints have been viewed over 720,000 times and that a YouTube video featuring solutions to fixing the iPhone 4’s faulty power button have been viewed more than 1 million times.

The class action suit seeks $5 million in damages. As an iPhone app developer  we’ve encountered people complaining about faulty power buttons regularly.  As mobile app developers in Los Angeles we’ll be intrigued to see how this case works out.