Photo by Robin van der Ploeg Earlier this week, we shared the news that Apple had admitted to slowing down older iPhones—an accusation originally leveled at the company by several Redditors and bloggers who found their phones' performance had been cut in half, and would only return to full performance with a battery replacement.
This admission, in which Apple defended this 'feature' as benefiting users, has now sparked several lawsuits.
Background
Last week, Apple confirmed that older iPhones—specifically iPhone 6/Plus, iPhone 6S/Plus, and iPhone SE—were indeed being slowed down on purpose, but denied any malicious intent (e. g. trying to trick people into upgrading to a newer iPhone).
Instead, in a statement to The Verge, Apple said the 'feature' had been implemented, "to deliver the best experience for customers" by preventing sudden shut downs or damage to the internal components that can be caused by an older battery trying to provide peak current it just can't handle anymore.
This explanation makes sense, and several technologically savvy commentators online (and even some readers in the DPReview comments) speculated that other companies likely do this same thing. But the lack of transparency—essentially only admitting that this was being done after being called out publicly—left many Apple users upset. . . and a few of them are doing something about it.
And Now
According to USA Today and The Verge, several lawsuits have been filed against Apple over this iPhone throttling. In the United States, suits have been filed in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York among others, but the lawsuits over this admission extend as far as Israel, according to Reuters.
One of the first, a proposed class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles filed last Thursday by two consumers, claims breach-of-contract because users never agreed to allow Apple to slow down their iPhones.
The latest suit, filed by five iPhone users in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, seeks class-action status and accuses Apple of fraud, deception and breach-of-contract for not notifying users that it was slowing down old iPhones. The lawsuit states that, had they known batteries were to blame for their phones slowing down, these plaintiffs would have chosen to replace their batteries instead of purchasing a new phone.
Apple has not released any comment on the lawsuits filed thus far.
. dpreview.com2017-12-29 20:31
