Apple is being sued by a man who alleges the company did not tell him and other consumers that the storage space taken up by the iOS 8 operating system when bought pre-installed on various devices leaves little room for one’s own files.
Jerry Jacobson filed the proposed class-action suit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging violation of various laws meant to protect California consumers. He seeks restitution as well as a court order directing Apple to stop the allegedly deceptive practice.
An Apple representative did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
The suit states that Jacobson bought iPhones and iPad Minis at various times during 2012-14 at the Best Buy store in Woodland Hills. All of the devices advertised they had 16 GB of storage space except for one iPad Mini, which contained 8 GB, the suit states.
Jacobson was unaware that the iOS 8 system leaves more than 23 percent of the advertised storage space inaccessible for other uses, the suit states.
In addition, those who upgrade from the iOS 7 system to iOS 8 with the encouragement of Apple are unaware that it will cost a device between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space, “a result that no consumer could reasonably anticipate,” the suit states.
Apple currently does not allow users who have upgraded to iOS 8 to revert to iOS 7, according to the lawsuit.
Apple “exploits” the capacity dilemma by offering cloud storage capacity at prices ranging from 99 cents to $29.99 a month and prevents consumers from buying such extra space elsewhere, the suit states.
Apple’s closing price Tuesday gave it a market value of $700 billion.
