Conspiracy theorists have long surmised that companies intentionally plant bugs in their devices to force consumers to buy the latest version of a particular product. This time it’s a California woman who is alleging that Apple purposely made iOS 4 harmful for 3G and 3GS devices so that customers such as herself would be forced to buy the iPhone 4 and drive Apple’s profits.

Plaintiff Biana Wofford filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple in the Superior Court for San Diego over the iOS 4 upgrade which she claims crippled her iPhone 3GS, she said in a court filing posted online by Wired. In it, Wofford argues that “in essence, Apple knowingly and intentionally released what it called a system software “’upgrade’ that, in fact, made hundreds of thousands of the third generation iPhones that were exclusively tethered to AT&T data plans ‘useless’ for their intended purpose. Since the release of iOS4 in conjunction with the sale and release of the fourth generation iPhone, or the iPhone 4 in June 2010, 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 paper weight.”

There’s been plenty of griping about Apple’s new operating system which was released just days before Apple started selling the iPhone 4. Although it came pre-installed on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3G and 3GS users were encouraged to upgrade their devices to the new OS as well. Yet according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is now investigating the countless complaints that have surfaced since the June release of iOS 4, many of them surrounding the device’s poor hardware and software performance issues.