iPhone 4 Screen Lawsuit Tossed in California

The iPhone 5 is set to be released soon, and as per usual, it appears that it will be another in the long lines of wins for Apple.   It will arrive in stores just as Apple wraps up a lawsuit over broken iPhone 4s.  A federal judge in San Jose, California, recently threw out a class action lawsuit from iPhone 4 owners who claimed that Apple misrepresented the strength of the phone’s glass screen. The case is Williamson v. Apple, Inc., No. 5:11-CV-00377 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 4, 2012).

In the lawsuit, the complaint alleged that Apple’s claims that its phone’s  glass screen was “20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic” were misleading, citing a study that the glass on the iPhone 4 breaks at a rate 82 percent higher than previous iPhones.  District Court Judge Edward Davila disagreed.  In his order dismissing the case, he stated that “it is a well known fact of life that glass can break under impact” and ruled that Apple did not breach a warranty or violate consumer protection laws.

I’ll admit that I have noticed a large number of of people walking around with cracked iPhone screens lately.  Are the screens really up to snuff as described in Apple’s marketing materials?  I could certainly see an argument that the ads might lead you to believe that the odds of breaking the glass are very low.  Especially when the materials appear to tout the glass screens as stronger than plastic screens, which rarely shatter.  However, the judge based his decision on the fact that Apple never stated that the iPhone 4 was “resistant to normal wear and tear, that the glass housing would never break or crack under normal use, or that the phone might not be damaged if it was dropped.”

So, it appears all of you iPhone 4 users rolling around with cracked screens aren’t going to hit the jackpot this time.  It might just be time to just pony up for that shiny new iPhone 5 with a fresh screen. Good luck.