The Android wiretapping case against Apple is falling apart

Apple today asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against it that claims the company wiretaps Android users by intercepting, and then failing to deliver, texts sent from iPhones to Android phones. The motion was made after Apple discovered that two of the three plaintiffs in the case had gotten rid of their old iPhones after they filed the suit against Apple. They are thus unable to demonstrate whether texts sent to their phone numbers went to their Apple or Android devices, Apple claims.

One of the plaintiffs has also asked that she be dismissed as a "named plaintiff" in the case.

And that request came a day after a judge declined to grant the case class-action status.

While legally the case will now proceed on its own (and not as a "class" representing all customers who switched from iPhone to Android) with two remaining plaintiffs, its prospects look a lot more negative than they used to.

It is not clear why Bouakhay Joy Backhaut wants to drop her name from the case. In motions filed by her lawyers, she wants to continue as a class member. She claims her husband traded in her old iPhone when buying her a new Android. Her husband, Adam Backhaut, is continuing as a named plaintiff. Kenneth Morris also remains on the case.

The three had alleged that they switched from iPhones to Android phones in 2012. After that, texts sent to them from other iPhone users were not delivered. They were probably stuck in Apple's iMessage system, which was notoriously unreliable at delivering texts to Android phones until late 2014, when Apple introduced a fix for the bug.

Read more about the case here.