THE iPhone is at the centre of a legal action in the United States based around claims that, contrary to assertions by its maker Apple, it does not function properly as a phone and does not download web pages and other data at twice the rate of its predecessor.
The plaintiff is seeking to have her case dealt with as a so-called class action which would mean that other consumers could join her.
The iPhone, which combines a mobile phone, internet access device and a digital music player, has been one of the most talked about consumer electronics devices since its introduction in the US in June 2007. More than one million of the updated 3G (third generation) iPhones were sold in the three days after it launched on July 11th in 21 countries, including Ireland.
Apple advertised the iPhone 3G as being "Twice as fast. Half the price". But since its introduction, online forums have featured numerous complaints from customers claiming the new model dropped telephone calls, suffered from a weak phone signal and did not run as fast over 3G mobile phone networks as they had been led to believe.
Over 5,000 topics related to 3G hardware have been posted to Apple's own online support forum.
Apple sent an update to the iPhone software this week which would have been delivered to phones automatically but the company did not give any details of the problems it was seeking to fix.
The US legal complaint, filed in Alabama by plaintiff Jessica Smith, maintains that the new iPhone connects to a 3G network "less than 25 per cent of the time". She says she "noticed that her internet connection, receipt and sending of e-mail, text messages and other data transfers through the device were slower than expected and advertised", and she experienced "an inordinate amount of dropped calls".
In Ireland, the iPhone is available only from O2 - through its own stores and those of Carphone Warehouse. An O2 spokesman declined to comment on the legal action but said "feedback on the functionality of the new iPhone from O2 customers who have purchased it has been mostly positive so far".
O2 operates a "call guarantee policy" for dropped calls, which comes into play if a customer "is disconnected from a call as a result of a break in coverage".
Provided they ring the same number within five minutes of being disconnected they will receive a credit to their account equal to the cost of the first minute of the second call.
Earlier this week, online news sources reported the problems connecting to 3G networks would be fixed by a software upgrade that would be released next month.