iPhone X/courtesy photo
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Apple Inc. is facing a class action claiming it paints a misleading picture of the size, resolution and pixel count on the screens on iPhone  X, XS, and XS Max models.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Apple of violating consumer protection laws in all 50 states via advertisements on its website that allegedly misrepresent the pixel counts and screen sizes of its phones. Plaintiffs attorney David Makman wrote that the iPhones “have half the advertised number of pixels.” 

The “screen size deception,” he wrote, “is simply based on Apple cutting corners.”

“Defendant rounds off the corners of the products' screens and the Products have notches without pixels at the top of their screen, but Defendant calculates the screen size of the Products by including non-screen areas such as the corners and the cut-out notch at the top of the screen,” Makman wrote. “The missing screen areas also reduce the false pixel counts of the products' screens below their advertised pixel counts.”

Though filed in California, the suit also seeks to certify classes in New York and nationally, with claims against Apple brought under both states' respective false advertising laws. The suit also claims violations of California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law, as well as New York's Deceptive Acts and Practices Act.

“Defendant's marketing of its products falsely inflates their screens' supposed pixel counts, resolutions, and sizes to make the products seem more appealing to consumers,” the complaint says. “Defendant has been unjustly enriched as a result of its unlawful conduct.”

Makman declined to comment on the lawsuit. Also representing the two plaintiffs—residents of California and New York, respectively—is C.K. Lee, a New York-based managing member of Lee Litigation Group. The New York Post has described the firm as “thriving” in New York's “distorted tort system” by bringing more than 1,000 class action suits in Manhattan and Brooklyn federal courts between 2009 and January 2018.

Neither Apple nor Lee responded to requests for comment by press time.

Apple is no stranger to litigation over its popular iPhones. A spate of lawsuits over the company's alleged intentional slowing of processing speeds on older iPhones resulted in a multidistrict litigation. Additionally, Apple found itself involved separate patent disputes with WiLan and Qualcomm over technology in its iPhones.

The pixel litigation initially has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins. An initial case management conference is scheduled for March 20 in San Jose.

Read the Complaint: