IN LITIGATION happy USA, it should come as no surprise that somebody – namely, Jessica Alena Smith – has decided to set up a class action against Apple over the Ithingey 3G's performance.

Ms Smith is particularly miffed given that she reckons that her native city of Birmingham, Alabama has pretty good 3G coverage from AT&T. Wasn't the first commercial 3G/HSPDA call made there or something?

Anyway, Ms Smith is referring to the Ithingey 3G as the "Defective Iphone 3G " and claiming it has poor performance and low reliability. There's also mention of an "inordinate amount of dropped calls."

Given the significant coverage already given in the press to problems with the Ithingey – including the INQ's own stories concerning Infineon's role in all of this – MS Smith reckons she has a jolly decent chance of turning the whole thing into a class action law suit.

The complaint apparently reads that the "Defendant [Apple] was and continues to be unjustly enriched at the expense of Plaintiff [Ms Smith] and Class members."

There's also allegations that Apple's rushing out of a new version of the Ithingey software – 2.02 – created just as many 3G bugs as it fixed.

Although most reports cite similar problems in other countries outside the USA, a swift poll of INQers here in Blighty showed that nobody had particularly noticed any connection issues. Even with one INQster notorious for his dislike of the Duke Of Cupertino.

One thing is for sure. If Apple doesn't come up with a fix for all of this, then its infamous moving target of 10 million handsets won't be reached by Q1 2009. µ

See also
Iphone dropped calls a global problem

L'Inq
Intomobile