Apple has reached a settlement after a three-year lawsuit with US customers over throttled iPhones. How Bloomberglaw reports, Apple wants up to $ 500 million pay to iPhone users affected by the performance throttling of older iPhone models.
A class action lawsuit asked loudly Golem the sum of $ 999 billion on the grounds that Apple deliberately misled iPhone owners to buy new devices. The $ 500 million from the settlement corresponds to 0.002 percent of this claim.
Apple disagreed with the plaintiffs' reasoning and referred to the possibility of battery replacement. The fact that the plaintiffs themselves described the comparison as "excellent" suggests that they themselves considered the chances of success for the sum mentioned to be low.
What's the deal with the throttled iPhones?
In late 2017, it came out that Apple had throttled CPU performance on iPhones with older batteries. The affected smartphones slowed down significantly as a result. The problem with the matter: Apple had not informed customers about the throttling.
The company initially explained the measure by saying that the older batteries could not supply the iPhones with sufficient power, but later admitted problems with the power management of the iPhonees. Apple apologized to the customers and briefly lowered the price for a battery replacement from 90 euros to 30 euros.
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Apple iPhone throttling – 11 million batteries replaced, sales lost
Significantly lower penalty payments in France: In addition to complaints from consumers, the secret throttling also resulted in investigations by individual authorities, including in France. There, the responsible office for competition law and consumer protection sentenced Apple to a fine of 25 million euros,
How did Apple agree with the plaintiffs?
The agreement, which the competent court in Northern California has yet to declare final, provides for the following provisions:
- Apple will pay at least $ 310 million, up to a maximum of $ 500 million.
- The parties to the class action lawsuit (read: the affected customers) receive the sum of $ 25 per iPhone as compensation. This is also used to measure the actual amount of the settlement payment, which, however, cannot exceed $ 500 million.
- The comparison applies to all previous or current US owners of an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus and SE running iOS 10.2.1 or iOS 11.2 or higher and those operating systems before December 21, 2017 used.
- $ 93 million of the settlement payment covers attorney fees, and a further $ 1.5 million in additional expenses.
- Apple doesn't see the settlement and payments as a debt admission.
Apple will therefore pay a maximum of $ 500 million regardless of the number of customers actually affected.
If more customers are entitled to the fixed compensation of $ 25 than the $ 500 million covers, the amount per iPhone will be reduced accordingly.
