You're viewing an article in iPO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site: Law Student Sues Apple Over iPod Capacity

News

Law Student Sues Apple Over iPod Capacity

Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 9:10 AM - by

A law student in Montreal, Canada, thinks Apple has misled consumers with its iPod storage claims. David Bitton is so mad, in fact, that he filed a class action law suit against the company because his iPod nano holds only 7.45GB worth of data, and not the advertised 8GB, according to the Montreal Gazette.

Mr. Bitton claimed that on average, Apple products offer about 7.5 percent less storage than is actually advertised. Apple, however, clearly states on its iPod nano Web site that the device's usable capacity is below the physical capacity.

From Apple's Web site: "1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less."

Apple's product packaging also states that the available storage is less than the device's raw, unformatted capacity. Mr. Bitton doesn't think that's good enough and claimed that many iPod buyers don't understand the difference between advertised and actual storage capacities.

Mr. Bitton is hoping the court will award him and all iPod owners in Quebec a full refund for their iPods, and barring that, a 7.5 percent refund.

32 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

+ show options

Your current settings, click to change: Sort Oldest First, Show Guest Posts, Hide Community Stats

Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:51 am

better sue every hard drive maker then. Not a single one makes a drive that meets this student's perceived standard. They're all "reduced."

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:01 am

What a f__k'n whiner! Shakespeare was right - kill all the lawyers and students of law

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:02 am

I hope Apple countersues this douchebag... It's obvious he's only doing it because he's having some bad buyer's remorse and wants to make it look as if it's Apple's fault he's not happy with his own decision, and try and make a buck off of Apple in the process.

Typical dirty stinking lawyer mentality.

Quote this post ↓

mahuti said:

member since 09 Jan 2003 with 377 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:03 am

'Bout time. This has chapped my hide for years. It's like when manufacturers were selling 15" monitors where you could only see / use 13.5" of screen real estate. What good's 1.5" of hidden monitor, and why was that a selling point? Turns out it wasn't and the courts did us a favor on that one. I really hate the fact that so many hard drive manufacturers consider 1000 mb = 1gb.... basically stealing 24 mb / gb. It's fine if they wanna decide that 1000mb=1gb, but they damn well need to change the OS software to display EVERYTHING using metric GB instead of actual GB. That way all of my mp3 files are 3.6mb instead of 3.2 or whatever.

I like his 7.5% refund idea. That's clever.

Quote this post ↓

Sir Harry Flashman said:

member since 08 Feb 2007 with 792 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:15 am

He probably put the kibosh on Apple selling an iTйlйphone in Quebec, if not all of Canada.

Now suppose they find pirated music on his iPod?

Quote this post ↓

geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:38 am

This is why I keep saying that suing Apple is this falls big fad. If this guy wanted to do something good then go after Seagate or Toshiba. They are the ones that make the drives and the claims. Apple, Dell, HP, et. al. just pass the claims on. It's an accepted industry practice to use unformatted capacity. If he did want to go after the makers of the end products then Dell and HP sell a lot more computers than Apple. but if you sue Dell nobody notices. Suing Apple gets your name in the press.

I see many years of ambulance chasing and weasely, marginally ethical legal tactics in this boys future.

I just had a thought though: Could it be that he's doing this as some kind of law school project?

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:47 am

Hahahahahaha!

Mr. Bitton, know you sue Apple because users don't understand what Apple clearly writes on every Ipod etc.? Then I should sue every contract I've ever signed, because I don't get half of it!

Maybe users should get a lawyer in future before buying anything to be sure that they understand everything! : ) Freak!

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:55 am

As a representative of Canada, I apologize for this moron.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:04 am

As a law student, even first year, he should already know that Apple has met the legal standard of disclosure with its published information regarding the actual capacity. And Mahuti...never mind, I won't make the obvious ad hominem attack. With that type of thinking your life is hard enough.

Quote this post ↓

Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:06 am

Just wait until law students learn about allocation blocks and then metadata. The possibilities are endless!

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:40 am

The US should import the same number of cheap, young lawyers as it does engineers. Of wait, US Congress is dominated by lawyers...

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:50 am

As a law student he should know that this has been to court many times and lost. I guess we should sue also when any os takes up space because its using up my personal storage as well.

Quote this post ↓

mahuti said:

member since 09 Jan 2003 with 377 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:51 am

Unnecessary to attack me with your non-attack "guest." Just say your peace, make your case. As for disclosure, saying an apple is an orange on an asterisk point doesn't make it so. Anyway, my complaint really lies with the industry's practice of listing unformatted size as actual size, and more importantly, listing GB capacity in metric terms instead of 1024s, which they do on a regular basis. Regardless of the packaging, you gotta admit that a hard-drive with a capacity of 20gb should in fact, have 20480 mb of total storage, and not 2000 mb of total storage (aka 19.5 gb.)

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:54 am

There's more inside an iPod besides the hard drive. 7.5% of the capacity does not equal 7.5% of the cost.

Thats aside from the obvious stupidity of this lawsuit.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:10 pm

Maybe this is a class project, to learn about nuisance lawsuits?

Quote this post ↓

Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:25 pm

Just once I'd like to see a headline "Apple files class action suit against lawyers for being stupid."

Just once!

Quote this post ↓

geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:55 pm

mahuti wrote:
As for disclosure, saying an apple is an orange on an asterisk point doesn't make it so. Anyway, my complaint really lies with the industry's practice of listing unformatted size as actual size, and more importantly, listing GB capacity in metric terms instead of 1024s, which they do on a regular basis. Regardless of the packaging, you gotta admit that a hard-drive with a capacity of 20gb should in fact, have 20480 mb of total storage, and not 2000 mb of total storage (aka 19.5 gb.)

True enough but it isn't Apples problem. It is an industry problem. I might have even been a little bit more sympathetic if he had sued the top five computer and drive makers. But he didn't. By just picking out Apple he terminally damaged his and his suits credibility. It smacks just a little bit too much of "Everyone is suing Apple this quarter, I guess I'll just jump on the bandwagon".

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 1:27 pm

Unformatted is quite different than Formatted.

When you format something you are actually PUTTING DATA ON THE DRIVE and setting up the block sizes/sectors, etc

[shaking head]

I think some people need to learn the difference. The iPod came with PRE-INSTALLLED software as well as the formatting information. Unformat the HD and it will be 8G. But you can't use it unformatted.........

This petty whine fest is ridiculous and petty. Those that don't like the 1,000MB = 1G I will ask you this.

When you refer to PIE in a mathmatical calcualtion do you refer to it is

3.14 (which is taught in most schools around the world)

or the TRUE number which is more on the lines of 3.141592653.............. (continues)

Most people tend to do that thing called "rounding" to make it easer for the masses.

Why not argue about what is the exact temperature of "Room Temperature".

I guess it is true. Stupidity is outbreeding everything else.

Quote this post ↓

Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 1:35 pm

Um, guest, when we refer to PIE in mathematical calculation, we are referring to the cups of sugar and teaspoons of cinnamon.

Quote this post ↓

Mikuro said:

member since 15 Jun 2002 with 457 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 1:56 pm

The dual-meaning of "GB" has bugged me for ages, but as has been stated, it's not Apple's problem. The whole industry does this. I'm surprised that this is about the nano, which is flash-based. I thought flash drives were typically measured in binary GB (i.e., 1GB = 2^30 bytes; AKA "GiB"), like RAM. *shrug*

When I was a kid it bugged me that the price tags on supermarket items did not include applicable sales tax. I got over it.

What bugs me most is DVDs. CDs were always advertised with binary megabytes. A "700MB" CD actually holds more than 700*2^20 bytes, but a "4.7GB" DVD only holds 4.38*2^30 bytes. The standard switched. But again, I've gotten over it. And all without suing anyone.

It's worth noting that outside of the world of computers, these prefixes always mean 1000, 1,000,000, etc.

Quote this post ↓

mahuti said:

member since 09 Jan 2003 with 377 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 2:00 pm

I don't think "the masses" assess the value of PI very often at all. Those that actually use it for important stuff like structural engineering probably add a few more decimals than 7th grad math students learning about it for the first time.

While I agree that the masses probably don't care about the difference between 1024 and 1000 of something, I'm sure they do care when they run out of space and wonder where the extra 1/2 gb went (me= case in point). In which case, it would be more prudent for the manufacturers to display the ACTUAL SIZE on the box OR get slightly bigger drives so that the actual size IS in fact 20gb.

If the effect is negligible, like a math probelm being off by <1% then by all means round. When your crappy math causes unnecessary consumer consternation... why not just correct it? To save a few bucks / unit shipped, that's why. I can see everyone's point that people needlessly target Apple when everybody else is doing it, but that doesn't make them right for doing it.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 2:38 pm

So Apple should put on the box "Some settling of contents may occure during shipping and formatting"?

Quote this post ↓

Sir Harry Flashman said:

member since 08 Feb 2007 with 792 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 2:57 pm

The thread about the value of pi is interesting. One of the books I am currently reading is The History of Pi. Petr Beckmann, the book's author, says that taking pie out to 5-6 decimal places is more than enough accuracy for almost all engineering purposes.

Anyway, as to truth in advertising. When was the last time you bought a 2x4 that was 2x4 inches?

Quote this post ↓

mahuti said:

member since 09 Jan 2003 with 377 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 3:20 pm

agreed, let's fix the 2x4 issue as well. And lemmee tell you, I'm going to run to the office for my ruler... I have some suspicious 3x5 index cards sitting around as well.

START THE LEGAL MACHINE!!!!!

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 3:32 pm

Mahuti...I apologize, but my "attack" is only that you make your life needlessly difficult by having anxiety (or even concern) over the precise amount of storage in a memory device, and whether you have access to every last binary bit. Chill. How do you assure yourself that the files you are adding to the device are *precisely* the size that are calculated and displayed on your computer? Don't those files also contain hidden bits for the directory and other low level information? How do you know? You don't...it's an APPROXIMATION, and it's been that way since the 1950's in the data storage world.

More importantly, why do you care? Storage is cheaper than dirt.

Quote this post ↓

mahuti said:

member since 09 Jan 2003 with 377 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 4:40 pm

So wait, you're ad-homineming me over my "anxiety" about storage space, telling me to chill because of this anxiety? I could be mistaken, but I'm sensing some anxiety on your part about my anxiety? Glass houses, stones, etc. You don't need to care about what I care about, but I'm thrilled that you do, it's a nice feeling to be loved. Far be it from me to turn down free analysis & opinions, so please help me dissect some additional issues;

1. Overwhelming concern over lightswitches pointing up when the light is turned off rather than down.

2. Discomfort at paying $.25 for an "air" token at the gas station.

3. Disgust at the idea that the applications on my hard drive are filled with language files for countries i've never heard of.

Do you work hourly or by session?

<topic>agreed it's a stupid suit.</topic>

Oh, and storage is cheaper than dirt, and I don't care much about it, but iPod storage is not as plentiful or available as a regular drive.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 6:47 pm

oh c'mon, guys. life's too short for this.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:09 pm

mahuti wrote:
So wait, you're ad-homineming me over my &quot;anxiety&quot; about storage space, telling me to chill because of this anxiety? I could be mistaken, but I'm sensing some anxiety on your part about my anxiety? Glass houses, stones, etc. You don't need to care about what I care about, but I'm thrilled that you do, it's a nice feeling to be loved. Far be it from me to turn down free analysis &amp; opinions, so please help me dissect some additional issues;

1. Overwhelming concern over lightswitches pointing up when the light is turned off rather than down.

2. Discomfort at paying $.25 for an &quot;air&quot; token at the gas station.

3. Disgust at the idea that the applications on my hard drive are filled with language files for countries i've never heard of.

Do you work hourly or by session?

<topic>agreed it's a stupid suit.</topic>

Oh, and storage is cheaper than dirt, and I don't care much about it, but iPod storage is not as plentiful or available as a regular drive.

Different guest here... just a bit of free info (with a smile).

Lightswitches are supposed to be down when off unless there is a multiple switch setup for that room (then one has to be up and another opposite etc.) Or somebody made a booboo when putting it in... fact!

The "air" token costing .25 cents is a good question... although air is free the power that is needed to compress it into a device that will allow mere mortals put it into an inflatable ie: Tire does cost something. Not to mention when was the last time you gassed up.. did you go to a "gas" station or a "service" station?? Service is a commodity now and is pricier al the time.

Thanxx for the time.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:14 pm

Oh and by the way... when was the last time McDonald's served a Quarter Pounder that was?? Quarter Pound denotes the weight of the meat... but the packaging says "Weight before cooking" been that way for years now!!

So, Hell Yeah Let's sue McDonald's... I want that extra lil bit of processed lard that I'm missing... that may Big Fat Ass is missing!!! And don't get me started on the Double Quarter Pounder... Geez!! Twice the dough!!

Quote this post ↓

mahuti said:

member since 09 Jan 2003 with 377 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:59 pm

Then we're in agreement then. Excellent.

Quote this post ↓

A guest said: (hide)

Fri Oct 19, 2007 8:45 pm

you guys should go read a bit on the issue and you will notice this guy is not that coucou

Quote this post ↓

daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:02 pm

geoduck wrote:
This is why I keep saying that suing Apple is this falls big fad. If this guy wanted to do something good then go after Seagate or Toshiba. They are the ones that make the drives and the claims. Apple, Dell, HP, et. al. just pass the claims on. It's an accepted industry practice to use unformatted capacity. If he did want to go after the makers of the end products then Dell and HP sell a lot more computers than Apple. but if you sue Dell nobody notices. Suing Apple gets your name in the press.

I see many years of ambulance chasing and weasely, marginally ethical legal tactics in this boys future.

I just had a thought though: Could it be that he's doing this as some kind of law school project?

I keep seeing you guys refer to "unformated" versus "formated" capacities, as if a 500 Gigabyte hard drive that you buy from any retailer has 35 Gigabytes of software written to it when you format it, leaving you with only 465 Gigabytes of free space that is reported as it's "formated capacity." Your information is incorrect, there is information that is written to the drives that do take up space, however the amount of space taken up is realtively small, and normally only a few 10's of Megabytes of space are unusable after the drive is formated, not Gigabytes of space, and the formating on a flash drive takes up even less space (hard drives have tracks that become unsable due to the formating technique used). Depending on the file volumes being created, various overhead can be accumulated, unix typically has a dedicated virtual memory partition that is dynamic in other operating systems that can also contribute to smaller than expected partion sizes for usable memory. However, the main issue with a 500 GB hard drive and only haveing 465 GB of space available to use on it has more to do with marketing than with formating. In SI prefixes giga means 1,000,000,000. In computer operating systems giga means 1,073,741,824. When a company sells a device with 500,000,000,000 bytes capacity, they can use the SI prefix to advertise it legally as 500 gigabytes, even though it's capacity in regards to computer software is 465.66 gigabytes.

Take a look at the box for a seagate hard drive and you will see that they have a disclaimer saying that they call a gigabyte 1,000,000,000 bytes.

Quote this post ↓

Post Your Comments

  Remember Me

Not a member? Register now. You can post comments without logging in, but they'll show up as a "guest" post.


Please enter the word exactly as you see it in the image above. Registered users aren't prompted for this. Having trouble reading the image get a new one.