Apple sued for blocking Upgrade Program members from pre-ordering the iPhone 7

By Christian de Looper Published September 15, 2016

it looks like Apple has a another rendezvous scheduled with its old friend the courthouse. The company has been sued, this time for blocking members of its iPhone Upgrade Program from pre-ordering the new iPhone 7.

The suit accuses Apple of misleading members of the iPhone Upgrade Program, which tend to be the biggest Apple fans. It’s important to note that the fine print for the Apple Upgrade Program does say that Apple “reserves the right to refuse or limit the quantity of any device for any reason,” according to a report from ZDNet.

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Apple is exercising that right in pre-orders of the iPhone 7, allowing non-members of the program to upgrade right away, while not allowing members to upgrade through the program. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Upgrade Program customers won’t be able to upgrade at all. The complaint notes that Emil Frank was unable to upgrade from the 64GB iPhone 6s to the black or jet black iPhone 7 in either 128GB or 256GB, and that he won’t be eligible to do so until November.

“While scores of customers signed up for the program and were ready to take advantage of the every-year upgrade with the release of the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on September 9, 2016, Apple had a different plan in mind,” notes the complaint. “It allowed non-iPhone Upgrade Program customers to snap up the limited inventory of the new devices while telling countless iPhone Upgrade Program customers to ‘check back later.'”

So what is the plaintiff seeking? The complaint is essentially asking Apple to give reimbursements to customers of the Upgrade Program who made payments in 2015 while waiting for the new iPhone. It also wants Apple to stop restricting the number of units available to members of the program, and is asking that Apple ensure that customers still get access to the 2017 iPhone when it’s launched next September.

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Christian de Looper

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Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

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