Apple, AT&T Hit with Third Lawsuit over MMS

Here comes another one. A frequently used line for Apple and AT&T this month as it got hit by another class action lawsuit for the third time this month. This is, again, about the Multimedia Messaging (MMS) issue that a lot of customers are complaining about.

A lot of customers are disappointed at Apple and AT&T as these companies led the people to believe that MMS will be available on the iPhone on its release. It turned out, MMS is in fact supported, its just that AT&T, the iPhone’s official US carrier, is not ready to support MMS just yet.

For at least the third time this month, Apple and AT&T are being sued by a consumer complaining of being duped into believing that multimedia messaging, or MMS, was already available on the iPhone.

Apple and AT&T announced on June 8, during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote that MMS would not be available until later in the summer. However, until now, its still non-existent. An AT&T representative stated that:

"We absolutely will offer MMS on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G with 3.0 upgrades in late summer, once we complete some system upgrades that will ensure our customers have the best experience with MMS."

But that didn’t stop customers from Ohio to file the lawsuit last Wednesday. Deborah Carr, the primary plaintiff says that:

Apple and AT&T misled the public into believing that the iPhone 3GS was capable of sending and receiving MMS messages on the device. The lawsuit claims that Apple’s "print and video advertisements…on television, the Internet, the radio, newspapers, and direct mailers"

all mention the availability of MMS on the device.

In Apple’s defense, MMS is already enabled in iPhone OS 3.0. In fact, other foreign carriers already activated MMS on the iPhone when the new operating system was released on June 17. I guess the problem now lies with AT&T. I just don’t know why the lawsuit included Apple. I guess that’s the price to pay to have that kind of partnership.