Get ready for your $3 settlement check over FaceTime needing iOS 7

Posted:
in iPhone
If you're still steaming over Apple requiring iOS 7 for FaceTime to keep working, you've finally had your day in court, and now you're getting the $3.06 you deserve.

You can't remember this far back - this is the iPhone 4
This is the iPhone 4. It's been a while.


Perhaps you can put the money toward an iPhone 12 Pro Max, where your $3.06 check from Apple will reduce the cost of that to merely $1,095.94. Or you could cut the cost of the Apple One Premier bundle down to $21.93 -- for this month, anyway.

What happened is that in 2014, millions of people were using an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S, and FaceTime got cut off. To get FaceTime working again, you had to update to iOS 7 -- which your phone did mostly support, but people were wary of.

Apple's iOS 7 had a huge visual change, moving from skeuomorphism to a more flat look. It was also said to be buggy, or at least enough so that some people did not want to upgrade.

According to the successful plaintiffs, Apple made a change to FaceTime in order to comply with a ruling that it infringed on certain patents. Then when alternative providers proved expensive, Apple reportedly devised its own back-end system for FaceTime, and that's what required iOS 7.

It's claimed that this saved Apple millions of dollars, but the company was clearly a penny wise and a dollar foolish, because now that it's been forced to pay out an entire $3.06 per person affected.

If that's you, though, then at the very least, you can now take that to the bank and know that for once, you got a check out of Apple, instead of the other way around. Don't let anyone tell you it's a small victory, it's still a victory and you probably didn't put a lot of effort into getting it, either.

Extract from the payout message being sent to people in the class action
Extract from the payout message being sent to people in the class action


Although, if your name is Christina Grace or Ken Potter, maybe you did. Following this issue with FaceTime in 2014, Grace and Potter filed a class action suit in 2017, which led to this big pay day.

For leading the class action, it was announced that they would be awarded up to $7,500 each. They filed on February 3, 2017, and Apple caved under pressure on April 28, 2021.

So that's $4.85 for each of the 1,545 days the case was in contention. Assuming an eight-hour working day, that's 61 cents per hour, or less than a tenth of the US minimum wage.

Apple is actually paying out $18 million, but of the people affected, everyone but Grace and Potter are getting $3.06.

Lawyers for the class action suit are expected to get just a teeny bit more, at something like $6.6 million. But to be fair, that includes expenses of $1.1 million.

If you've been notified of your share of Apple's $18 million, note that you have only 90 days in which to cash that check.

Read on AppleInsider
p-dog

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    This story is hilarious in its writing. I remember some class action many years ago in which I received a free install CD of OS9.2 as my ‘settlement’. This just shows these class actions lawsuits are more about lawyers than the aggrieved plaintiffs. Enjoy your $3.06 all you outraged iOS users! It’s pay day!

    And $18 million is just something Apple found under the seat cushions in Tim Cook’s office. This really taught Apple a lesson didn’t it.
    edited July 2021 thtp-dogdewmewatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 2 of 13
    looplessloopless Posts: 329member
    There is always a suspicion in my mind that the original plaintiffs get way more than the 7500 and that somehow part of the  millions the lawyers get ends up somehow in their pockets.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 13
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,727member
    lkrupp said:
    And $18 million is just something Apple found under the seat cushions in Tim Cook’s office. This really taught Apple a lesson didn’t it.
    Probably a lot cheaper than trying to make FaceTime work on the older versions of iOS (and support it).
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 13
    The only winners in most class action lawsuits are the attorneys. The customers end up paying for it in the end, one way or the other.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 13
    $3.06? Yay! Now I can pay off my mortgage and buy that new car I've been wanting!
    the1maximuswatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 13
    I still have two iPhone 4. Does that mean I get $6.12?! Woohoo!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 13
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Not a fan of functionality being removed from my devices with conditions attached to putting it back.  Apple should've been slapped harder.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 8 of 13
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,054member
    While lawyers get $million!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 13
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    The only winners in most class action lawsuits are the attorneys. The customers end up paying for it in the end, one way or the other.

    Yep, every dollar Apple pays out in settlements is a business expense that figures into the prices of their products. Of course the customers pay the price of lawsuits 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 13
    crowley said:
    Not a fan of functionality being removed from my devices with conditions attached to putting it back.  Apple should've been slapped harder.
    Or people could have updated to iOS 7
    edited July 2021 watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 13
    mfrydmfryd Posts: 216member
    In the long run, consumers benefit from these sorts of class action suits.  While individual consumers only got about $3 each, Apple is paying out $18 million.   That's 18 million reasons for Apple to avoid repeating this sort of consumer harm.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 12 of 13
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    crowley said:
    Not a fan of functionality being removed from my devices with conditions attached to putting it back.  Apple should've been slapped harder.
    Or people could have updated to iOS 7
    Nope, covered that.  "Conditions attached"
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 13 of 13
    rossb2rossb2 Posts: 89member
    So the real winners are the lawyers. That is often the case.
    watto_cobra
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