Apple, AT&T sued for lack of MMS capability
A class action started in a Louisana district court alleging that Apple and AT&T touted the iPhone as supporting MMS (multimedia messaging service) but have not as yet provided the service. — The plaintiffs allege that Apple …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Louisiana class action is the third consumer suit filed jointly against Apple and AT&T over an iPhone feature claim, following the 2007 Visual Voicemail lawsuit and last September's complaint over 3G network saturation. Plaintiffs allege the iPhone was marketed as supporting MMS multimedia messaging, which U.S. customers still cannot use.
Timing matters: days before this filing, AT&T had already moved to change its terms of service — applying even to existing contracts — to block class action lawsuits. The new complaint lands squarely inside that legal-containment window, testing whether the arbitration-clause strategy holds up while advertised-but-missing features keep generating grievances.
First-order effects
- Apple and AT&T now face a third joint class action alleging a gap between advertised and delivered iPhone capability, adding legal exposure on top of the carrier's ongoing network-congestion criticism.
- U.S. iPhone buyers who paid for devices marketed with MMS support remain unable to send photos and video by message, keeping the feature gap itself unresolved pending any launch commitment from AT&T.
Second-order effects
- Rival carriers can weaponize the gap in marketing against the iPhone's exclusive AT&T arrangement, since missing MMS is a visible, everyday deficiency rather than a technicality.
- AT&T's just-introduced anti-class-action terms of service come under immediate scrutiny, because if they hold they will shape how every future iPhone feature complaint gets channeled — away from courts and into arbitration.
Third-order effects
- If the advertise-then-delay pattern recurs across successive lawsuits, device marketing will drift toward narrower, legally safer claims at launch, with features disclosed only once actually available.
- Carrier terms-of-service changes designed to preclude collective consumer claims point toward arbitration becoming the default venue for handset disputes, structurally weakening the class-action lever plaintiffs have repeatedly used against Apple and AT&T.
The trend: The iPhone's exclusive U.S. carrier pairing keeps converting advertised-versus-shipped feature gaps into recurring consumer litigation, while AT&T responds by contracting the legal surface through contract terms.