First up it was “Batterygate” that cost Apple tens of millions because of dishonest behavior by the big iPhone and Mac PC Company, now it’s been revealed that Apple has another ‘Flexgate” PC display problem that they have tried to hide from customers.
What’s been revealed in a US Court is that Apple may have knowingly deceived customers by selling MacBook Pro’s with defective screen design that resulted in uneven lighting and in some cases a blank screen.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila wrote in a ruling last week, “The allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect,”.
The problem known as ‘Stage Light” was first revealed to Apple engineers back in 2017 but Apple Australia failed to tell customers and they kept selling the questionable PC’s. Apple then tried to quell complaints about the problem.
The reason that Apple chose not to tell customers about the display problem is because the original display costs about $6, but to replace the entire display amounted to a $600 bill for Apple claim observers.
This is the same Company whose CEO Tim Cook was lecturing business via a media interview earlier this year, that they had to act a lot more “responsibly”.
He is also the same CEO who lectured the State of Georgia on their new voting laws.
Apple has also been accused of deliberately removing complaints about the issue from their own social media network.
“The allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect,” U.S. District Judge Edward Davila wrote in his ruling.
Consumer repair site iFixit discovered that the thinner cable Apple used in the design was prone to stretching and tearing, which resulted in the stage light screen effect. Eventually, if left unreplaced, the cable would completely rip, and the screen would not turn on. The issue was dubbed “Flexgate” by affected customers.
After numerous complaints, Apple was forced to implement the Display Backlight Service Program so that customers could send in their 13-inch MacBook Pro for free service, but the 15-inch Pro was excluded from the program, according to 9to5 Mac.
The plaintiffs in the case filed suit against Apple as a result.
In the case, the plaintiffs alleged that despite knowing that the 15-inch model was subject to the same display issue, Apple continued to sell the larger Pro notebook to consumers without warning them of the potential flaw.
Davila agreed with the suit, and the judge said that Apple would have known about the defects through user reports.
One of the plaintiffs in the suit Mahan Taleshpour, accused Apple of going a step further by deleting comments on its website about the issue.
Taleshpour added substance to his claim that Apple’s attempt at actively concealing the design flaw proved that it had knowledge of the Flexgate issue.
“If Apple deleted comments on its website from consumers complaining about display issues attributable to the alleged defect, that suggests that Apple had knowledge of the alleged defect, superior to that of plaintiffs or potential class members,” he said.
Unlike other MacBook Pro flaws, like issues surrounding the company’s use of the butterfly switch mechanism for the keyboard, this issue has not yet been certified as a class action lawsuit in the USA or Australia.
To date, nine plaintiffs have joined this single suit, and the judge is allowing the case to proceed.
Digital Trends reported that for its part, Apple had already rectified this design flaw with the release of the 2018 MacBook Pro models by using a longer and more flexible cable. The company also reversed course on its butterfly key switches and went with a more traditional scissor-switch mechanism on more recent laptop models.
Last week revealed that Apple was under investigation in South Korea for questionable business practices and “impeding” regulators investigating the Company.
