Software upgrades are supposed to fix things, but sometimes they do the opposite.

Disgruntled about the effects of an operating system update on her iPhone, a customer wants to battle Apple in court with a class action lawsuit.

San Diego resident Bianca Wofford last week filed a lawsuit seeking class action status, alleging that Apple committed false advertising and unfair and deceptive business practices by encouraging iPhone 3G users to download iOS 4, the latest version of Apple's mobile OS. Wofford claims that even though the iOS upgrade promises fixes and improvements, it made her second-generation iPhone unusable.

"The true fact of the matter ... is that the iOS 4 is a substantial 'downgrade' for earlier iPhone devices and renders many of them virtually useless iBricks" (.pdf), Wofford's lawyers wrote in the complaint.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Apple's iOS operating system has received a major upgrade once a year, and the company has disclosed that some new features do not work with older handsets, because they carry less memory or slower processors. When Apple announced iOS 4, it said that multitasking would not work on the second-generation iPhone, for example, but it would be supported on newer handsets. Also, Apple said iOS 4 was not compatible with the original iPhone at all – but it was supposed to work with the more recent iPhone 3G.

However, when iOS 4 shipped in the summer, some iPhone 3G customers complained that the update caused performance to become very sluggish. Months later at Apple's Apple TV press conference, Steve Jobs said iOS 4.1 would address performance issues on the iPhone 3G. Some tests showed that iOS 4.1 improved the iPhone 3G's performance only slightly.

In her complaint, Wofford claims that Apple was aware that iOS 4 would cause degraded performance on older iPhones, and she accused Apple of purposely creating an incentive for customers to purchase newer iPhones.

"Apple has falsely, intentionally and repeatedly represented to owners and consumers of the iPhone 3G that its new operating system for the device, iOS4, was of a nature, quality, and a significant upgrade for the functionality of all iPhone devices, when in fact, the installation and use of the iOS4 on iPhone 3G resulted in the opposite — a device with little more use than that of a paperweight," the complaint read.

Wofford's suit, filed in state court in San Diego County, requires approval from a judge to gain class action status. If it became a class action suit and is won, Apple could be forced to pay damages to iPhone 3G customers.

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com