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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: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @07:05AM (8 children)
Not exactly true. Given a notification that my phone (or any other device, for that matter) is suffering performance issues due to a worn out battery, I'm going to replace the battery. I do that routinely in my vehicles, as do millions of other car owners. Obviously, Apple phone users weren't given such an option. They may have been given other options, as well. They may have preferred that the phone just cut out, and die, rather than be slowed down while the battery lasted.
That's the whole problem with the walled garden. You and I are unable to make intelligent, informed decisions, because Big Brother has already made the decisions for us. If you happen to be an Apple Fanboi, you may insist that "Apple knows best!" for as long as you wish. But, that has no bearing on whether the court cases should proceed. There should have been a notification, prior to the installation of the software, to the effect, "Your battery is worn, or damaged, therefore your phone's performance may be unreliable. Do you wish to install an update that should extend the life of your batter, by slowing your phone down?" The installation must be opt-in, not opt-out. I would rather that my phone crash a couple times, forcing me to either opt-in, or to get a new battery. DO NOT sneak in some update behind my back that degrades my phone's performance.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @09:43AM (4 children)
Looks like they made a reasonable technical decision. Fine that it's not the one you would make but what's with the lawsuit? Have people got nothing better to do?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday December 29 2017, @11:24AM (2 children)
No, it really doesn't look like that.
It looks like either they did a *really* poor job of power supply design (other phones don't "suddenly shut down" and they don't have this "feature"), or that they're just throttling for the obvious reason: they want you to buy a new phone.
As for their protest, quoted verbatim here from their letter:
...this is utter bullshit. The constantly stop allowing their OS upgrades to run on hardware that is perfectly capable of running those upgrades. They've been caught at this multiple times. My 3 GHz, 12/24 core, 64 GB Mac Pro "can't" be upgraded to MacOS 10.13, so says Apple. But in fact, if you flash the bios to say that it's a machine made one year later, it'll upgrade perfectly. And why shouldn't it? It's little, if any, different than that machine. Even if it was slightly different (other than the date flashed into the hardware), this is a company with many, many billions of dollars in the bank that made a decision to obsolete this hardware for only one reason: So that it would go long in the tooth before its time and put buying pressure on the owner. There's no other possible reason.
They threw the PPC emulation out the window for just as little reason (no, probably less.) They let all those user's software suddenly go obsolete for a reason that boils down to "weren't going to pay for the emulation any longer", again, when they had tons of cash to maintain the tech and users had tons of PPC software. I still have PPC software running on (very) old machines, specifically because there is no reasonable in-OS upgrade path that lets that stuff keep running. The irony is that the massive power of the machines we have now would make those apps run very well indeed.
I have more examples. From apps they took out of the store because they had integrated the tech into a new phone, thereby removing the possibility of users of an older phone having the tech unless they upgraded — to severe bugs they leave mouldering in old versions of the OS while not allowing upgrades to the new version of the OS, Apple is a known serial offender of the "let's pressure the customer."
Apple is lying here. Flat-out lying. And caught at it.
(Score: 2) by terrab0t on Friday December 29 2017, @04:22PM (1 child)
Other phones do suddenly shut down without this feature. The Google Nexus 6 phones suffered from the same issue [extremetech.com].
The throttling is a shutdown fix. On its own, it’s a good feature. It keeps your phone from shutting off completely in cold weather, or when the battery is old.
The questionable thing Apple did was not make knowledge of this feature available to regular users. Even a warning on some kind of battery status screen would have been enough.
It’s hard to say if not publicizing the feature was an oversight, or a sneaky way of making users dissatisfied with their older phones. Many people assume it was malicious because they assume the worst of Apple. That alone won’t win a lawsuit though.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday December 29 2017, @10:26PM
You're not getting my point. I'm sure it's my fault for not being clear. I wasn't saying it wasn't possible to design such a lousy power supply that a phone would not collapse under load; I was saying there are phones out there that don't do this, so this clearly demonstrates the opposite (to the non-engineers... we engineering types already know very well it's possible to make sure adequate power is available if the battery isn't on its very last legs): It's possible to design a power supply that won't collapse under load."
Either it is, in which case Apple put an under-par power supply in their very-expensive-phone and tried to hide it, or it's propaganda to cover up the fact that they were trying to drive customers to a new phone, or it is both.
Yes, that's a
questionabledeceptive thing Apple did. But it's not the only thing. It does demonstrate their corporate character very well, though. Their feet are being held to the fire a little bit, and that's a good thing.No it isn't. Here, look: Apple has a known history of driving people to more recent hardware with purely policy-based limits they impose. This event fits in very well, even seamlessly, with that behavior.
Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has duck feathers, found in ponds, webbed feet, yellow bill, lovely ducky coloring, other ducks all around it, many ducks have been found here before...
I'm saying "It's a duck."
Even if I were wrong about this (protip, I'm not), it's not my fault. It's Apple's fault for constantly populating the pond with ducks and then throwing in a perfect duck look-alike.
And as opposed to Apple's claim:
"That right there is a very fine example of a rabbit. Would you like a rabbit? It's a very courageous rabbit..."
We assume it's malicious because Apple has a history of being malicious in precisely this manner. If we are making assumptions, they are assumptions Apple has earned, and in spades.
I'm pretty sure that a company with this kind of money in the bank doesn't really care a lot about such lawsuits. But they don't like their reputation being dragged through the mud. And when they are caught red-handed in deceptive anti-consumer behavior, as they certainly have been here, that happens. They may – mind you I'm only saying may – remediate their behavior. That's the only worthwhile outcome of this I can see.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @02:15PM
Define "reasonable". Your definition won't include "serving the paying customer". It will include "maximizing profit".
(Score: 2) by terrab0t on Friday December 29 2017, @04:49PM
Some people want a notification when the shutdown fix kicks in. You prefer your phone notify you of a battery problem by crashing.
There are ways Apple could have let users know about this fix—and they should have . Letting people’s phones crash is not one of them.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday January 04 2018, @05:17AM (1 child)
Oh look, an uninformed comment.
This isn't about reduced battery life, this is literally about sudden shutdowns.
As in, your phone is fully charged, but if you visit a web page that contains slightly more JavaScript than normal, your phone shuts down. It's still fully charged, mind you, the battery just isn't providing enough voltage for the CPU as it clocks up so the phone dies.
You could even play a game! How many times can I get the phone to shut down before I hit 50% battery capacity?
There are lots of things to complain about Apple, but this isn't one of them (considering you already bought into the garden, stupid).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 04 2018, @02:33PM
"the battery just isn't providing enough voltage"
That is pretty much the definition of "not charged". Your indicator for your battery charge is apparently indicating that your battery is charged to it's current capacity. It is NOT telling you that your battery is "fully charged". Let's take a standard 12 v wet cell battery, like most of us have in our vehicles. A full charge for such a battery is typically very close to 13.5 volts. As the battery ages, it may take a little less charge, you lose a little of the cold cranking amps, and the process continues until (usually) the first cold winter day. All of a sudden, you don't have enough voltage and/or CCA to start the vehicle.
Now, how about we do with your vehicle, like Apple did with their batteries? We allow the battery to lie to the user. "Oh, yes, I'm charged!! I have 13.5 volts and 550 CCA, and I'm ready to go!" And the damned battery is still lying to you on that cold ass winter morning, when you can't start the engine. Your volt and ampmeter (assuming you have meters) show normal readings, but the car won't crank.
I'd be pretty damned pissed off if I decided, "Well, it's got to be the starter", go buy a starter, and the car stll won't start. Next thing, buy new battery cables because you know all about voltage drop, and old rotten cables. Still no go. The battery says it's in new condition, I know the starter and battery cables are new, - so where do I go from here? Call a real auto mechanic, right? He charges me like $350 to tow the car, and put a new battery in it - and only then tells me that batteries lie all the time.
Apple should have TOLD PEOPLE that their batteries are on their last legs, and unable to keep up with normal demands. The subterfuge just goes to show what a shitty company they really are.