Apple iPhone 4 Hit With Class Action Suit

July 1, 2010— -- Just a week after the international launch of Apple's iPhone 4, complaints over the new smartphone's reception problems have escalated to a class action lawsuit.

Maryland and Washington, DC law firms filed a suit against Apple and AT&T Wednesday, representing two iPhone 4 owners who accuse the companies of negligence, misrepresentation and other offenses.

The complaint, filed by Ward & Ward PLLC, based in Washington, DC, and Charles A. Gilman, LLC, based in Timonium, Maryland, alleges that Apple sold iPhone 4 owners "defective" devices.

The plaintiffs, Kevin McCaffrey and Linda Wrinn, both of Maryland, maintain that Apple should discontinue sales and marketing until the defect has been fixed. They seek an undisclosed amount of damages.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment and when contacted by ABCNews.com, an A&T spokeswoman said the company did not have a comment at this time.

In the first three days of its launch last week, the iPhone 4 found its way into more than 1.7 million hands around the world. The device, touted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as the "biggest leap" yet from the original iPhone, has had the most successful launch in Apple's history, the company said.

But the otherwise impressive launch has been marred by complaints from customers that holding the phone in a certain way blocks the external antenna, leading to dropped calls and reception issues.

While the old phone had an internal antenna, the new model has an external one. According to tech bloggers and iPhone users, call reception apparently drops when the user's palm covers the bottom left corner of the phone.

After the first complaints started surfacing online, Apple quickly responded, releasing a statement that said, "Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, depending on the placement of the antennas."