Apple iOS 8 Lawsuit Claims False Representation of Storage Capacity

By Keerthi Chandrashekar Jan 03 2015, 17:40 PM EST

A new lawsuit in California claims Apple misleads its customers on how much storage is actually available for personal use on iPhones, iPads and iPods. At the heart of the debate? The size of the brand new iOS 8 operating system.

Miami residents Paul Orshan and Christopher Endura filed the suit, showing iOS 8, released in September alongside the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, can eat between 18 and 23 percent of the available storage on devices with only 8GB and 16GB to begin with. The end result is there is very little space for the user to use personally for apps, photos, downloads and other software.

"Apple's misrepresentations and omissions are deceptive and misleading because they omit material facts that an average consumer would consider in deciding whether to purchase its products," reads the complaint. "Rather ironically, Apple touts iOS 8 as 'The biggest iOS release ever.' Of course, Apple is not referring to the literal size of iOS 8, which appears to be entirely undisclosed in its voluminous marketing materials extolling the purported virtues of iOS 8."

The class action lawsuit seeks reparations for others who happened to snag an iDevice with 16GB or less storage. As someone who upgraded my old 8GB iPhone 5s (I now sport a iPhone 6 but only with 16GB capacity) to iOS 8, I can personally attest to how laborious the process was. Even after getting rid of my photos and other features, I still had to resort to downloading the install file on my computer and upgrading via iTunes. While it worked in the end (the iOS install file is initially larger than how much the OS takes up after), it certainly wasn't the easy "over-the-air" update process I have become used to with smartphones.

Chances are the lawsuit won't really get anywhere. Consumers are already aware of the limited storage space on their smart devices. Data shows that the higher-capacity 64GB and 128GB iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models have been more popular than in the past. In fact, personally speaking, the only realistic solution seems to be to simply not offer such low-storage models anymore. Pictures and videos alone can render a smartphone useless in a matter of weeks. Starting the iPhone series off at 32GB is probably the best bet, given it's kind of difficult to strip down vital operating system code.