Two iPhone owners who live in Florida have filed a class action suit against Apple, claiming that the company advertises devices as having more storage capacity than they really do, of loading creating an operating system download that requires excessive space when first downloaded, and pushing paid cloud-storage services on customers who fill up the smaller-than-advertised hard drives on their phones.

As most people with electronic devices realize by now (even if they aren’t sure exactly why) an iPhone advertised as having, for example, 16 GB of storage doesn’t necessarily have 16 GB of space available: the iPhone 6 advertised as having 16 GB of storage really has around 12 GB available.

This isn’t a new problem, and it’s certainly not the first time that consumers have filed a class action over the issue, but there are two very specific complaints being made here: that Apple’s mobile operating system takes up too much room, and that the company is taking advantage of its phones’ small and non-expandable storage capacity to upsell users on cloud storage.

In the complaint, the iPhone users’ attorneys claim that users aren’t told how much of their already meager storage capacity they will lose when upgrading their phone’s operating system. “Apple fails to disclose that upgrading from iOS 7 to iOS 8 will cost a Device user between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space – a result that no consumer could reasonably anticipate,” they point out. What happens when those users run out of space? It’s time for an upsell! Once space runs out, the iDevice asks the user whether they’d like to rent some additional iCloud space. “For this service, Apple charges prices ranging from $0.99 to $29.99 per month,” the complaint notes.

The plaintiffs demand that Apple stop their false advertising of device capacity, and would like their suit certified as a class action so other affected consumers can join them in asking for damages.

Complaint [PDF]
Apple Customers Sue Over Shortage of Storage Space in iOS 8 [Bloomberg News]

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