A class-action lawsuit was submitted over the weekend in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, claiming that Apple is overstating the iPhone’s water-resistant capabilities. In summary, plaintiff Antoinette Smith claims that Apple’s misleading and essentially untruthful claims lead consumers to believe that they can emerge their iPhone devices in water and other liquids without risking damage, only to damage them irreversibly.
As the lawsuit detailed, approximately 100,000 smartphones are damaged by water every day in the US, a figure that has grown by 45% since 2016. The reason for this explosion in liquid damage cases, according to the plaintiff, is precisely Apple’s false marketing claims, which actually cost American consumers over US$10 billion each year.
The lawsuit further details that the IP67 rating given onto the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 suggests that they are capable of resisting water damage in depths of 1 meter for up to 30 minutes, while the IP68 rating on the iPhone 11 Pro (and Pro Max) and the entire iPhone 12 lineup take this figure up to four meters. Because these certifications are based on highly controlled laboratory conditions using static and pure water, they are not applicable to real-world use case scenarios, and thus they are misguiding.
