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Apple Now Faces 26+ Lawsuits for 'Purposefully' or 'Secretly' Slowing Down Older iPhones

pat500000 said:
Treat your customers right by allowing them to fix it or replace parts rather than soldering them would help their situation
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The battery hasn't been soldered in any iPhone in years, if ever. Anyone can replace the battery on their iPhone with just a few screwdrivers and tweezers.
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ppnkg said:
Apple's whole business model cries planned obsolescence. Why are slowed-down iphones such a surprise?
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The business model of selling phones? Like every other phone manufacturer?
 
Marekul said:
And no, that Apple is engineering obsolescence into their devices is not a conspiracy it is a fact.
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It is a fact. Absolutely true... of every almost tech company since Moore's Law was first published 40+ years ago (except for those companies that have gone out of business.) If a company that depends on semiconductor technology doesn't purposefully try to obsolete its's current product generation with the next generation, the competition certainly will do that for them. Given that it takes a 3 or so year design cycle from conception to shipping custom silicon, by the time a company ships any market competitive tech product, they probably already have multiple generations of prototypes in the engineering lab, proving that the newly introduced product is not just planned to be, but is already obsolete.
 
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Joe h said:
If it is like any other class action, once a judgement or settlement is reached, all iPhone owners will be informed, and then either have to fill out a form to collect, or fill out a form to back out. For the ps3 and a whirlpool washer lawsuit, I had to return a postcard in order to collect. And for the EarthLink ‘refusal to prorate the cancellation fee’ lawsuit, I was given the choice to either back out if I wanted to sue them myself, or I would automatically receive the settlement, which was actually the full amount I was screwed out of.
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The class members will get like $5 and the law firm will make off with $50 million.
 
Narcaz said:
Sadly Apple deserved this. They should have used higher quality parts to ensure that the device works at least two years in a sufficient way.
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My iPhone 6 worked perfect for nearly 3 years. Oddly, I noticed it slow down before I noticed the battery life shorten. I can’t complain about the ‘quality’ of the parts. If you are someone who is draining the battery twice or more on your device, you may bot be able to expect the battery to hold up for two full years; at least with current battery technology.
 
indychris said:
That's just silliness. No one is okay with a phone that is randomly shutting down, but neither are most okay with their phones being forcibly SLOWED down with absolutely no explanation to the cause. Even more, many of those people INQUIRED of Apple regarding the phone performance only to be told that there was nothing wrong.

Remember VW's lawsuit about secretly altering emissions stats? Are you okay with that? What if a car company advertised a certain level of fuel performance, but as the car aged it no longer met those levels. So the next time you take your car in for an oil change, they tinker with you car and put a governor on the motor that impedes performance, but increases your mileage to their advertised standards. They don't tell you, and when you asked about a certain 'lag' as you push the accelerator, their service underwriter gets in the car, drives it, and says, "Hey, everything seems fine to me."

Are you okay with that? Consumers just want honest, upfront communication, and they are due that as a paying customer.
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Bad example. As a car ages, the engine and transmission wear and there are major power losses. I hsven’t seen a auto manufacture stating this is the owner’s manual or on their websites. The same assumption should be made with batteries.
 
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Phonephreak said:
I for one would be very curious to see what would happen if Apple offered a thicker phone, with amazing battery life. I’m only talking 2-3mm thicker. Or the current ones.
Which one would sell more?
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I’ve heard people in real life complain about the thickness of the SE.
 
ronno said:
OK so NO - you haven't had one of these where the processor is throttled down to 40% of it's original power.
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That's your unproven assumption. No one here has the test equipment to tell if the processor is really being throttled, or something else is causing slow behavior. The benchmarks likely can't tell (as it's against App store guidelines).
 
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SeaFox said:
They could put a larger battery in them to start with, so degraded performance is less likely to cause operational issues. But that would mean making the phone thicker... can't have that. /s

Truly a literal case of "form over function".
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Actually, it hold only prolong the time before that happened. It’s a problem inherent in Lithium Ion.
 
firewood said:
That's your unproven assumption. No one here has the test equipment to tell if the processor is really being throttled, or something else is causing slow behavior. The benchmarks likely can't tell (as it's against App store guidelines).
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you are completely wrong about the benchmarks, stop spewing BS. Apple even uses geekbench to test their device speeds.
 
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firewood said:
That's your unproven assumption. No one here has the test equipment to tell if the processor is really being throttled, or something else is causing slow behavior. The benchmarks likely can't tell (as it's against App store guidelines).
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Are you kidding? Apple has confirmed that they throttled the processors...have you not read their press releases?!?
I have run the battery tests and I trust the benchmarks more that I trust Apple on this issue.

Anyway, they'll have their day(S) in court. Well, at least 26 courts.
 
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firewood said:
It is a fact. Absolutely true... of every almost tech company since Moore's Law was first published 40+ years ago (except for those companies that have gone out of business.) If a company that depends on semiconductor technology doesn't purposefully try to obsolete its's current product generation with the next generation, the competition certainly will do that for them. Given that it takes a 3 or so year design cycle from conception to shipping custom silicon, by the time a company ships any market competitive tech product, they probably already have multiple generations of prototypes in the engineering lab, proving that the newly introduced product is not just planned to be, but is already obsolete.
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You are confusing two things here:

obsolescence
the process of becoming obsolete or outdated and no longer used.

planned obsolescence
a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials

see the difference?
 
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jarman92 said:
There is exactly zero evidence that iPhone batteries aren't capable of running the phone properly unless they're brand new. Apple's statement refers to and much of the anecdotal evidence is based on batteries that are years old, under heavy strain, operating in cold temperatures, chemically degraded, or some combination thereof. Your reference to 95% health is entirely arbitrary. The update wasn't remotely "stealth," it was publicly announced. Your speculation that any Genius told any customer to buy a new phone if they weren't happy is exactly that: speculation.

So overall, also a pretty poor comparison.
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So which iPhone 7 battery is years old? :rolleyes:
 
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ronno said:
Are you kidding? Apple has confirmed that they throttled the processors...have you not read their press releases?!?
I have run the battery tests and I trust the benchmarks more that I trust Apple on this issue.

Anyway, they'll have their day(S) in court. Well, at least 26 courts.
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how many different countries now? I'm willing to bet all the US cases will be combined into one.
 
firewood said:
That's your unproven assumption. No one here has the test equipment to tell if the processor is really being throttled, or something else is causing slow behavior. The benchmarks likely can't tell (as it's against App store guidelines).
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You mean the same geekbench iOS App everyone can buy on the Appstore? The one that does a mix of CPU intensive tasks (like AES encryption, speech recognition, compression) and measures the time it takes to complete? Maybe you should tell Apple about it :D
 
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Speed up my 6 back to where it was when it was new through a software update.

Shouldn’t software get more efficient over time anyway? If not, give me a custom iOS for my 6 that’ll treat it with love.

Then I’ll get the new battery at the end of the year.

Happy customer. Even though I know Apple’s bastardly tactics.
 
mebehere said:
Speed up my 6 back to where it was when it was new through a software update.

Shouldn’t software get more efficient over time anyway? If not, give me a custom iOS for my 6 that’ll treat it with love.

Then I’ll get the new battery at the end of the year.

Happy customer. Even though I know Apple’s bastardly tactics.
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unfortunately the issues with the 5s, 6, ipad air are the 1 gig of RAM and the newer iOS's are designed more for 2 gig and above

we all know how well windows runs on the bare mininum amount of ram as listed in the system requirements
 
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Michael Goff said:
I’ve heard people in real life complain about the thickness of the SE.
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I have Never even seen an SE in public other than the store displays. Let alone complain about how it’s too thick. I think Apple would be stunned with the amount of people opting for longer battery life. Imagine 2 days between charges. Never running out of juice.
 
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Act3 said:
they are expecting $10 payment per CD-ROM drive in that class action.

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit...e-indirect-purchaser-class-action-settlement/

this cruise vacation one is getting me about some money too

http://fortune.com/2017/08/17/robocall-lawsuit-compensation-resort-marketing/
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Expected is usually very different from what one ends up with because of the number of claims filed.

Seriously, the only people for whom this is worth anything are the lawyers. It is not even worth your time to do what is necessary to file a claim.

It is still a good thing because it creates a slight deterrent for companies to cheat. But as mentioned by another poster, companies can weigh cost of lawsuit vs cost of being honest and decide which makes better business sense. Often times, being honest loses.
 
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ghanwani said:
Expected is usually very different from what one ends up with because of the number of claims filed.

Seriously, the only people for whom this is worth anything are the lawyers. It is not even worth your time to do what is necessary to file a claim.

It is still a good thing because it creates a slight deterrent for companies to cheat. But as mentioned by another poster, companies can weight cost of lawsuit vs cost of being honest and decide which makes better business sense.
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That is true, as long as being dishonest doesn't result in possible criminal charges it makes perfect sense from a business standpoint.

I'm sure there are companies that find it cheaper to just pay the fines rather than follow regulations. I read that apple is being fined recently for not providing the required documents on time on some court case in California. It would change a bit if the punishment was jail time.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/23/court-fines-apple-withholding-evidence-qualcomm/

25K a day is like what for a company like Apple?
 
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