Apple paying up to $500 million to settle iPhone battery slowdown lawsuits

AppleInsider

Myriad class action suits against Apple's battery OS update that could have resulted in a device with a depleted battery performing tasks slower may be coming to an end.

Apple's iPhone 7 lineup

Apple has agreed to pay about $25 per iPhone 6 through iPhone 7 Plus, inclusive of the iPhone SE, that ran the iOS 10.2.1 update or later. Owners of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus that ran iOS 11.2 or later before Dec. 21, 2017 are also able to file for compensation.

In a report on Monday, Reuters noted that the class-action settlement still requires approval by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California.

Attorneys for the multiple suits filed called the settlement "fair, reasonable, and adequate" and "considerable by any degree." Apple's discounted battery replacement program -- now expired -- offered replacements for $29 per phone.

Attorneys working on the case are seeking up to $93 million -- 30% of the $310 million payout pool. They are also seeking $1.5 million in expenses above and beyond the 30%.

At present, Apple has no comment on the matter.

Battery Controversey

In Apple's iOS 10.2.1 update, the company solved a problem where iPhones would shut down, depending on the battery output voltage. In iPhones with a worn, chemically-depleted battery that cannot hold its charge over time, too low a voltage for an iPhone's load could cause the smartphone to unexpectedly shut down, in order to protect its components.

Apple's solution was to "smooth out the instantaneous peaks" where worn batteries are detected, effectively slowing down the iPhone in the process. After admitting in December 2017 that some software changers were made to prevent shutdowns, Apple apologized and offered reduced out-of-warranty battery replacements at $29.

Shortly after acknowledging the slowdowns, Apple was hit by a string of attempted class-action lawsuits, accusing Apple of depreciating the value of the iPhone, that users didn't agree to the feature's implementation, as well as not allowing devices to run at their original speeds.

Along with the lawsuits, Apple has become the subject of multiple investigations and probes by international regulators, which in some cases has resulted in fines of up to $11.4 million.

pulseimages

I wish the $29 battery replacement offer was still ongoing. My iPhone SE needs a second battery replacement and I barely got a year out of the first replacement. 

hodar

$500 Million.  All Apple had to do was throw up a pop-up window saying "iPhone Battery is degraded, the performance of this iPhone will be reduced, to prolong useable iPhone battery life."

Then, the user of the iPhone would know his performance was degraded, and why; and he could make the decision whether the degradation of performance was worth the cost of replacing the battery.

rob53

hodar said:

$500 Million.  All Apple had to do was throw up a pop-up window saying "iPhone Battery is degraded, the performance of this iPhone will be reduced, to prolong useable iPhone battery life."

Then, the user of the iPhone would know his performance was degraded, and why; and he could make the decision whether the degradation of performance was worth the cost of replacing the battery.

Apple would still have been sued for your message. Consumers and ambulance chasing lawyers always want things to last forever and rarely understand why they don’t. This should never have gone to court but there’s always a judge that will accept it. 

robin huber

No good deed goes unpunished. If only Apple had published their intention up front, this nonsense could have been avoided. 

MplsP

hodar said:

$500 Million.  All Apple had to do was throw up a pop-up window saying "iPhone Battery is degraded, the performance of this iPhone will be reduced, to prolong useable iPhone battery life."

Then, the user of the iPhone would know his performance was degraded, and why; and he could make the decision whether the degradation of performance was worth the cost of replacing the battery.

robin huber said:

No good deed goes unpunished. If only Apple had published their intention up front, this nonsense could have been avoided. 

Completely agree. There will always be lawsuits, but by not notifying people they caused a lot of confusion and speculation - even amongst Apple Store employees. As a result, people could legitimately claim Apple did it to drive sales. 

The problem with Apple's good deed was it caused problems because people didn't know or understand what was going on. If we’re honest, how does the average consumer know if Apple cut performance to protect people from inadvertent shutdowns, or whether they did it to drive sales and the shutdown rationale was an excuse they came up with after the fact? It comes down to your opinion of Apple and whether you trust them or not. Personally, I do, but I wish they had been clear about what they were doing. 

geekmee

I haven’t read the lawsuit, but I’d be interested to know where did they find the documents that show this was Apple’s intentions or strategy for increasing sales??...This appears to be a verdict by speculation???
If ‘speculation’ is the new standard, let me start applying it to other tech manufacturers.

randominternetperson

geekmee said:

I haven’t read the lawsuit, but I’d be interested to know where did they find the documents that show this was Apple’s intentions or strategy for increasing sales??...This appears to be a verdict by speculation???

It's not a "verdict." It's a settlement.  Apple decided that it's cheaper/better to settle than to let a judge or jury decide.  Maybe there was a smoking gun of ill intentions somewhere, or at least something that could be interpreted that way.  It probably wouldn't be hard to find at least one email that speculates about how this would impact Apple's sales.

geekmee

You are correct it is a settlement rather than a verdict.
But is one email assessing impact on sales show an intent to defraud as a strategy??...Especially from a company that has a pretty consistent history of accountability to the consumer??
My question is where is the evidence that shows intent to harm??
Agreed, they could’ve been clearer... But show me a device maker that could’ve been clearer?

We are talking about a decision to protect the user from component who’s performance has become dysfunctional outside of its life expectancy, when and if they experience it, not across the board performance.

But to your point, it’s a settlement, not a verdict.

But my point is, if the user got a new battery, this would not have been an issue....

Is my opinion.

airnerd

hodar said:

$500 Million.  All Apple had to do was throw up a pop-up window saying "iPhone Battery is degraded, the performance of this iPhone will be reduced, to prolong useable iPhone battery life."

Then, the user of the iPhone would know his performance was degraded, and why; and he could make the decision whether the degradation of performance was worth the cost of replacing the battery.

All they had to do was not change the behavior of the phone, just let it start crashing.  In lieu of doing nothing, they should have been more forthcoming when it was first discovered that Apple was slowing down phones with degraded batteries.  

This entire issue doesn't make the main stream news if the messaging of what they were doing to your phone was crystal clear.  It ended up looking like the claim they were doing it to help keep your phone alive longer was just covering their rears, since the tone from Tim was dismissive and after being "caught".

9secondkox2

Longtime Apple aupporter

bit the iOS upgrade that jacked up phones with their original batteries was shady. It was a wrong, move and a bad move. 

Apples explanation was PR. 

I have had almost every iPhone since and including the original. 

Never experienced ANY of the issues Apple said we’re going to happen if they didn’t handicap my iPhone 6 Plus. 

It was a move to drive new phone sales. Period. 

From a company that has had the simple motto of “make the best prisucts and people will buy them,” it was a surprisingly Samsung type of move. 

I get the pressure of having to keep up with and exceed financial performance expectations, but sheesh. You may have a year or few that sales aren’t “historically high” or setting new records. Again. 

That’s ok. It means the thing you made last year really was that good. 

Then, as everyone goes through their upgrade cycles, you make the next best thing ever and people buy that. 

But don’t ever make people regret what they had ugly already just to try to push them to the next thing you want to sell. 

From laptops to iPads to iPhones, the battery indicators have always been excellent and in the 1-0% range, you know you’re in the danger zone. No one needs Apple breaking the battery indicator accuracy or bogging down performance and then acting like it was a favor. 

I did feel a bit betrayed by this. I do hope to get my $2 or whatever. Just on the basis of principle. 

But more than anything, I just hope these types of stupid boardroom decisions are a thing of the past. 

Be honest, work hard at making the best products that work well and reliably, and people will buy them. When they feel it’s time to upgrade, they will return to you for that experience again. 

That’s the thing with Apple. 

Sure other companies made the big money faster. But they were using untrustworthy business models. 

Apple stayed on the straight and narrow and it took longer, but it was also more steady and reliable. And the customers became raving fans. That is branding you cannot create in a marketing meeting. 

It’s a track record of people buying products that work excellently, look great doing it, and keep working excellently until you’re tired of using it and want the next thing. It’s things like having a 15 year old PowerBook g4 17” that STILL runs like a champ even though it can’t run newer Operating systems

iPhone 4 that still works great. iPads that won’t quit. 

With everything outside of my iPhone 6, I have had the best and long lasting experiences with in my Apple purchases. 

From iPhone to ipad to notebooks and desktops and accessories, including Apple watches, my household is full of apple. And as a result, so is my workplace. Because I was sold, I was able to sell my company on Apple and in the last year, we’ve purchased multiple MacBook pros, iMac 5ks, iPads, and accessories. 

So Apple, we all make mistakes, but this one was on purpose. Let’s not do that again. 

MisterKit

I never have understood how people would rather have their iPhone shut down than slow down.

muthuk_vanalingam

MisterKit said:

I never have understood how people would rather have their iPhone shut down than slow down.

When the phone switches off suddenly, people DO understand that the battery is faulty and needs replacement. It is NOT rocket science as you guys who are blindly supporting Apple make it out to be. By hiding the problem from the end user, apple made the user experience worser and forced the user to buy a new phone instead of replacing the faulty component (in this case, the battery). 

avon b7

MisterKit said:

I never have understood how people would rather have their iPhone shut down than slow down.

I think what got Apple into this situation from a legal perspective is screwing up the communication side of things.

On a deeper level I think they were treading on thin ice with the battery capacities they were choosing at a time when usage was becoming far more intense. 

This situation had an easy solution but someone screwed up by taking the wrong course of action and not being as transparent as they could have been.

jungmark

Lawyers getting rich. Shocker at the results. Totally avoidable if Apple communicates better. 

rain22

MisterKit said:

I never have understood how people would rather have their iPhone shut down than slow down.

That’s not the point at all.
They took a flaw and deceptively turned it into an opportunity to screw over customers.
 Apple snuck code into updates that throttled their phones  - to directly dupe them into buying new phones. 

The whole “it was a feature to protect customers” is pure PR bullshit that nobody bought except for a few people on this forum. It’s their fallback statement if they got caught. Don’t be so naive. 

 This is no different than than the Volkswagen diesel scandal - “we had software that duped emissions to protect people from experiencing poor performance with their cars”. 

Apple is indefensible on this and they know it. That’s why they settled. 

rain22

MisterKit said:

I never have understood how people would rather have their iPhone shut down than slow down.

That’s not the point at all.
They took a flaw and deceptively turned it into an opportunity to screw over customers.
 Apple snuck code into updates that throttled their phones  - to directly dupe them into buying new phones. 

The whole “it was a feature to protect customers” is pure PR bullshit that nobody bought except for a few people on this forum. It’s their fallback statement if they got caught. Don’t be so naive. 

 This is no different than than the Volkswagen diesel scandal - “we had software that duped emissions to protect people from experiencing poor performance with their cars”. 

Apple is indefensible on this and they know it. That’s why they settled. 

AI_lias

This: "On a deeper level I think they were treading on thin ice with the battery capacities they were choosing at a time when usage was becoming far more intense"

MplsP

randominternetperson said:

geekmee said:

I haven’t read the lawsuit, but I’d be interested to know where did they find the documents that show this was Apple’s intentions or strategy for increasing sales??...This appears to be a verdict by speculation???

It's not a "verdict." It's a settlement.  Apple decided that it's cheaper/better to settle than to let a judge or jury decide.  Maybe there was a smoking gun of ill intentions somewhere, or at least something that could be interpreted that way.  It probably wouldn't be hard to find at least one email that speculates about how this would impact Apple's sales.

Even if there wasn’t a smoking gun regarding sales, or if they had clear documentation that they did it to protect against crashes and shutdowns people could still argue that they were harmed because they purchased a new phone that they didn’t need when their own phone shut down. I’m sure that was part of the equation the lawyers went through with the settlement. 

Also, I really have to wonder how this feature/OS change made it through without anyone saying "Hey, do you thing maybe we should let people now that we're throttling processor performance?" and what the response was to the person who brought it up. With all the analysis being done on phones, processors, etc, they had to have known it would be uncovered.

digitol

Apple has increasingly become horrible, unethical throughout the years. This is another example. Absolutely disgusting and disappointing that a company that sits on top of billions upon billions of wealth, resorts to cheap tricks, and unethical behavior. SAD. Loyalty begets loyalty. Ask yourself, how as Apple showed any loyalty to you lately. 

midwestapplefan

HOW DO I GET MY $25?