The "way too hot McDonalds Coffee," was a legitmate case. Why can't this be too? I'm playing Devil's Advicate here, but while on the surface this lawsuit may seem superficial, it may actually hold substance when looked at from a different angle. My iPhone is cracking too... I wouldn't sue, but still from others that I know, I believe it maybe a problem. In any case there is no reason to hate on the lawsuit bringers... even if they deserve it. That McDonalds coffee that spilled was over boiling point. Coffee is suppossed to be served well before boiling point. That makes that case reasonable. Imagine spilling liquid above 125 degrees on your lap... and you bitch about people bitching about their iPhone, tsk tsk.

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Let's play where's the tort. Putting a cup of boiling coffee between your legs (BTW, boiling point on my planet: 212f) implies at least a little contributory negligence, no? Even so, if harm was caused, there's the potential of liability. Fair enough.

That said, but for a an ego of epic proportion, disabled by the inability to be seen in public with iPhone micro-cracks, I'm not sure this rises to the test of harm.

This is about the warranty. Go to Apple, ask for a fix, give them reasonable time to repair, replace or refund (that sticky, required-by-law stuff, again) and get on with your life. If they fail to perform, then sue for the value of the phone, plus any damages from the failure (pain and suffering don't count) and buy something, anything else. I've got a Western Electric bakelite number that's guaranteed to remain intact through the next ice age, if you're shopping.

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First off, let's take this out of the world of iPhones. Let's say you buy a car. After 6 months, you notice that the interior trim is cracking and little bits of foam padding are coming from the cracks. Do you sue?

Bear in mind - interior trim in no way affects the functioning of the car and the car is still driveable. It is purely cosmetic. Nonetheless, you bought the car, in no small part, because you like the aesthetics. You thought the layout looked nice. The dealer won't pay to fix the trim and the manufacturer put a clause in the warranty disclaiming coverage for it. You had no chance to read that warranty before purchase though. Even if you had, you had no chance to negotiate terms.

Now what if the car also occasionally stalled out as well. Nothing dangerous but what if every so often, when at a stop light, your car (in addition to having cracked interior trim) stalled out 5% of the time when at a stop light. And what if about once a day, while listening to music, the car stereo would shut itself off. What if the mileage advertised was nowhere near real-world performance too?

Without the court system, you'd have no recourse.

The iPhone drops calls, has a crashy browser, is prone to lagginess, and appears to be have poor QC implementation as evinced by the cracking problem.

As to the McDonald's case, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

In that case, McDonald's was serving coffee at 190* to people that it knew, or should have known, would be drinking it in a moving vehicle. This was 20* hotter than other restaurants. McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries but took no action to change their conduct. The jury held that it was unreasonable to serve coffee at near-boiling temperatures.

A little perspective is needed. The jury award was the equivalent of less than 2 days of sales from coffee. And if that doesn't put things in perspective, consider that following post-trial motions, the judge lowered the punitive damages assessed by over $2 million to $480,000.

Moreover, it's not like the plaintiff ran to the courthouse. She wasn't looking for a handout. She was looking for payment for medical bills caused by McDonald's negligence.

The plaintiff initially asked McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. During discovery, McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000.

And at the close of discovery, plaintiff's attorney demanded $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused to increase its offer. (BTW: "demand" and "offer" are actual legal terms used in settlement negotiations)

A world without lawyers is a world without safety.

Oh, and "one more thing" - tort law is common law and varies by State. The only way you get into federal court in a negligence action is through diversity of jurisdiction.

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It's called "breach of implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose" and "breach of warranty of merchantability". Granted, on the first count, there's not much there, but the second one is a colorable claim.

Moreover, at the end of the day, Apple is a company that manufactures things and one thing that companies that manufacture things don't do is risk taking verdicts.

Give this a few years and it'll settle. Consider the settlement as a method of adjusting the price point of a product that appears to have been either not well-designed or rushed to market.

And I can't say I disagree with the plaintiff on this one.

@infiniteloop: Threats of violence and profanity - nice social skills. The anonymity of the internet makes you a big man. Too bad it doesn't make you an intelligent one.

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Carbon Fiber is x-ray transparent, but not radio transparent. We have worked with both medical components that utilize this, and have tried to make GPS cases for race cars out of carbon, with bad results. Would not be extremely expensive in this size, but certainly more that the yogurt container material they are using now. I agree, they should go back to aluminum, or a least offer a higher end model.

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"Koschitzki alleges that many of the hairline cracks are visible on unopened, unused iPhones"

For your reading pleasure.

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