A new lawsuit filed over problems with the iPhone 3G has brought forward the question of casing, documents show. The suit was filed by Avi Koschitzki in a New York district court, and mainly focuses on the common complaint of misrepresenting performance, charging Apple and AT&T with deceiving people about the speed of iPhones on the latter's 3G network. Koschitzki's case is based on "information and belief the 3G iPhones demand too much power from the 3G bandwidths and the AT&T infrastructure is insufficient to handle this overwhelming 3G signal based on the high volume of 3G iPhones it and Apple have sold," according to his lawyers.

Koschitzki notes that many iPhone owners have been unable to stay on a 3G connection, and are instead being forced to drop to EDGE in areas that should have widespread 3G reception.

The suit is novel for being only the second to introduce the issue of hairline cracks in the iPhone's casing, which can form around ports and buttons on the device, sometimes before a person has even used it for the first time. "Although Apple was and is aware that the iPhones were and are defective, and that consumers have experienced repeated instances of cracked housing," reads Koschitzki's filing, "Apple has nevertheless allowed the defectively designed iPhones to be sold to the public."

Additional criticisms are leveled over a lack of software updates, namely for application crashes and the aforementioned connection problems. Class-action status is being sought for the suit.