The IT Nerd

Bloomberg is reporting that The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Apple in regards to being found guilty of fixing e-Book prices in the US:

The justices turned away an appeal by Apple, leaving intact a federal appeals court ruling favoring the U.S. Justice Department and more than 30 states that sued.

The rebuff means Apple must comply with a settlement it reached with the states in 2014. The accord calls for Apple to pay $400 million to e-book consumers, $20 million to the states, and $30 million in legal fees.

So this appears to be over and you can close the book on this case. And as usual, the only winners appear to be the lawyers.

You might remember that I wrote about a new feature in iOS 9 called WiFi Assist and why you might want to turn it off. My logic was as follows:

This feature was designed to help you in situations where your WiFi connection isn’t the best by automatically switching over to cellular data so that you can do whatever it is that you need to do. Plus you won’t need to manually disable WiFi in that situation. The catch is that if you have a capped mobile phone plan, you’re going to consume more data That may not be desirable for some.

It clearly was not desirable for someone as Apple has been served with a lawsuit. Here’s the details from AppleInsider:

In the complaint, plaintiffs William Scott Phillips and Suzanne Schmidt Phillips allege that because of costs related to Wi-Fi Assist, the “overall amount in controversy exceeds” $5 million. Filed in a U.S. District Court in San Jose on Friday, the suit was first discovered by AppleInsider.

Once users update to iOS 9, Wi-Fi Assist is turned on by default. Its goal is ensure a smooth Internet experience, switching to cellular data in the event that the user is connected to a weak Wi-Fi signal.

The complaint asserts that Apple did not properly explain Wi-Fi Assist on its website until only after a “flood of articles” were written about unintended cellular data use. For the plaintiffs, that addition to the website was too little, too late.

“Defendant’s above corrective action, however, still downplays the possible data overcharges a user could incur,” the suit reads. “Reasonable and average consumers use their iPhones for streaming of music, videos, and running various applications — all of which can use significant data. Defendant’s corrective statement does not disclose any basis for its conclusion that an average consumer would not see much increase in cellular usage.”

The suit states that the plaintiffs incurred overuse charges on both of their iPhone 5s units after upgrading to iOS 9. It did not say exactly how much those charges were, but asserts that the plaintiffs and the class were mislead about cellular data usage on their devices.

In the complaint, Apple is accused of violating California’s Unfair Competition Law, the state’s False Advertising Law, and of negligent misrepresentation.

My $0.02 worth. Apple should have kept the feature off by default and had users turn it on if they so choose. Having said that, Apple does explain in this document how this feature works, and it’s pretty clear as it goes into a fair amount of detail. So as a result, I’m pretty sure that while Apple didn’t exactly do themselves any favors by enabling this feature by default, they’re going to dodge this lawsuit as they have the feature decently documented. Though I would like to know how the plaintiffs came up with that $5 million figure.

You might remember that Apple teamed up with a bunch of publishers to raise eBook prices, and Apple had been appealing again and again and again the fact that they were found guilty. Well, today a federal court ruled that Apple orchestrated a conspiracy to raise eBook prices and as a result now owes $450 million:

By a 2-1 vote, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court judge that the conspiracy violated federal antitrust law, and that the judge acted properly in imposing an injunction to prevent a recurrence.

Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston said that by organizing the conspiracy, “Apple found an easy path to opening its iBookstore,” while ensuring that marketwide prices rose to a level that Apple and the publishers wanted.

But wait! We’re not done yet. It is entirely possible that Apple will yet again appeal. So you may want to watch this space to see what they do next.

UPDATE: Reuters has a story with a statement from Apple that says this:

“While we want to put this behind us, the case is about principles and values,” Apple said. “We know we did nothing wrong back in 2010 and are assessing next steps.”

I think that translates to “we’re going to appeal.”