Class Action Lawsuit Says Apple Lied About iPhone’s Display (and Notch)

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A newly filed lawsuit is accusing Apple of willfully deceiving consumers about its OLED iPhone’s pixel count — and the notch.

The suit, which was filed in the Northern District of California Friday, alleges that Apple made fraudulent claims about the display size and pixel count on its iPhone X, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices.

“The pixel deception is rooted in the misrepresentation of the Products’ screens, which do not use true screen pixels,” the plaintiff’s lawyers wrote in the filing, adding that Apple allegedly misled by “false pixels as if they were true pixels.”

The suit claims that this is “in contrast to every other iPhone,” and alleges that Apple misleads customers into believing its OLED devices have more pixels and better screen resolution than its other devices.

Those “false pixels” are essentially pixels that have two or fewer subpixels. The suit claims that only pixels with red, green and blue subpixels are “true pixels,” while others are not.

It’s worth noting that many televisions also display both “false” and “true” pixels since they can include white subpixels instead of red, green and blue ones.

The suit also claims that Apple lied about the true screen size of the iPhone X, which is widely known to have a 5.8-inch display measured on the diagonal.

According to the filing, the iPhone X’s display is “only about 5.6875 inches” because Apple apparently pretended “that the screen does not have rounded corners” or a sensor cutout.

Those aren’t the only issues brought up in the filing, either. The suit goes on to allege that Apple uses deceptive marketing — specifically, wallpapers — to mislead consumers about the existence of the notch on newer iPhones.

Basically, the lawsuit claims that the black portions of those wallpapers have been intentionally included to hide the notch on the iPhone XS and XS Max. The filing says that those images lead one of the plaintiffs to believe that the iPhone XS Max she ordered did not have a notch.

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Of course, it may be a stretch to say that someone had no idea the “notch” existed. The tech community made a fuss about the design decision after the iPhone X’s launch, and there are prominent images in Apple’s site depicting both the iPhone XS and XS Max with a notch.

Christian Sponchiado and Courtney Davis are named as the plaintiffs in the suit, which is being represented by the law offices of David A. Makman. The lawsuit is seeking class-action status.

The complaint is asking for Apple to stop its alleged deceptive practices, as well as damage payments for anyone participating in the class action.

It’s worth noting that the lawsuit isn’t very likely to make it to trial. Instead, Apple will probably seek to get it tossed out or settle it out of court. The full suit is available to view here (via Business Insider’s Kif Leswing).

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