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Apple defrauded iPhone users by slowing devices without warning to compensate for poor battery performance, according to eight lawsuits filed in various US federal courts in the week since the company opened up about the year-old software change. The tweak may have led iPhone owners to misguided attempts to resolve issues over the last year, the lawsuits contend.
All of the lawsuits — filed in US District Courts in California, New York and Illinois — seek class-action to represent potentially millions of iPhone owners nationwide. A similar case was lodged in an Israeli court on Monday, the newspaper Haaretz reported.
Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment on the filings.
The company acknowledged last week for the first time in detail that operating system updates released since "last year" for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 included a feature "to smooth out" power supply from batteries that are cold, old or low on charge. Phones without the adjustment would shut down abruptly because of a precaution designed to prevent components from getting fried, Apple said.
The disclosure followed a December 18 analysis by Primate Labs, which develops an iPhone performance measuring app, that identified blips in processing speed and concluded that a software change had to be behind them.
[...] The problem now seen is that users over the last year could have blamed an ageing computer processor for app crashes and sluggish performance — and chose to buy a new phone — when the true cause may have been a weak battery that could have been replaced for a fraction of the cost, some of the lawsuits state. "If it turns out that consumers would have replaced their battery instead of buying new iPhones had they known the true nature of Apple's upgrades, you might start to have a better case for some sort of misrepresentation or fraud," Boston University professor Rory Van Loo, who specialises in consumer technology law, said.
[...] The lawsuits seek unspecified damages in addition to, in some cases, reimbursement. A couple of the complaints seek court orders barring Apple from throttling iPhone computer speeds or requiring notification in future instances.
Previously: Two Class Action Lawsuits Filed After Apple Admits Slowing Down iPhones
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday December 29 2017, @06:04AM (4 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Friday December 29 2017, @02:13PM
The problem is if the owner is aware the battery in knackered they might attempt to have the battery replaced thus extending the life of the phone. This means one less sale of the shiny new iPhone 7XL2000Jeewhiz edition for only $999.99. Fuck Apple.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday December 29 2017, @05:49PM (2 children)
I'll tell you what happened to me this morning. My charger wasn't plugged in last night so I woke at 5:45 AM to a 1% battery reading. I woke at 5:45 because I was on the road to work at 5:50; this is two and a half hours earlier than normal for me because I had things I had to do. On the way I got a text which changed the pattern of what I did on arrival to work - I couldn't sit at my desk right away. I got another text message while I was handling the first crisis. When I finally got to my desk I opened the phone and popped the Messages app and got a really weird response - the window opened in stuttering stages. I grabbed my cable and plugged it in and like magic my phone returned to normal.
So, thanks to the slowdown I got one, maybe two, semi-critical texts instead of a dead iPhone when I woke up.
Those who are trying to make a class action of this can shove it unless they can prove ACTUAL and REAL damages from the slowdowns. Even then I'd say Apple has every right to structure it's processor to run the way they want it to. But that's MVHO.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:10AM (1 child)
You're right! Apple has every right to run every one of its CPUs any way it wants!
... however, once it has sold things to people, it loses the right to unilaterally decide how to run those CPUs that it once owned, but then sold.
If they were smart, they might have said: "Your battery is fuxx0red. Would you prefer graceful degrading, or shorter batery life?"
TL;DR: your desire for a gracefully degrading experience does not equate to the need that other people might have for running complex apps at full speed. Get over yourself.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:12PM
I'll try. You make a good point, and I agree it would have been better for Apple to give people a choice.
This sig for rent.