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Apple moves to dismiss lawsuit over 'misleading' iOS device capacity claims

Apple on Wednesday filed a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims the company misrepresented to consumers the amount of storage space iOS 8 uses in newly shipped iPhone and iPad devices, noting plaintiffs failed to provide evidence of fraud.

According to Apple's California court filing, plaintiffs Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara did not present facts supporting claims that iPhone and iPad buyers were intentionally misled about the amount of usable disk space available on new devices running iOS 8. Apple was first slapped with the lawsuit in December.

"Like all software ever written, Apple's iOS mobile operating system— which enables the device to function— uses a portion of a device's resources, including its storage capacity," Apple said.

Plaintiffs argue that, while they knew iOS 8 would eat up some disk space, the operating system was larger than expected at between 600MB and 1.3GB. They were not able to "reasonably anticipate" the size of iOS 8 as compared to previous versions of Apple's mobile operating system, the filing said. The suit also asserts Apple used unanticipatedly low device capacity to sell customers subscription-based iCloud storage plans.

In its motion to dismiss, Apple said the argument suffers from two fundamental flaws, the first being plaintiffs' inability to produce evidential statements from Apple or other sources that would have lead them to such expectations. Secondly, plaintiffs failed to mention the cited subscription iCloud storage plans only apply to upgraded service options. Apple offers 5GB of free iCloud storage space with every new device purchase, more than enough to cover iOS 8's alleged large size.

Further, Apple notes plaintiffs only purchased 16GB versions of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6, as well as an unidentified iPad model, but are suing over 8GB and 16GB iPhone, iPad and iPod products. Plaintiffs, therefore, lack standing in asserting their complaint.

Apple requests the suit be dismissed with prejudice.