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And I've posted benchmarks for my numerous iPhones showing that none of them are throttling. Even with the battery at 50%. Guess I'm just lucky then? Personal anecdotes don't mean much. What will carry weight in court is data from Apple about things like how many devices are affected, how many people choose throttling when given a choice or how many of those $29 battery replacements were done.

This only means that you are not going to get any money from these lawsuits. Those whose phones were affected will.
 
What makes you think that slow performance isn't the most compelling reason people upgrade phones? Especially to new phones that aren't all that different, just faster.
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Telling customers their battery is "healthy" and refusing to replace it while secretly slowing their device down because of an "aging" battery is blatantly dishonest. It can't be both ways.

You do get that you have to PROVE that your were injured by an action (injure in this case meaning you're out of pockets as a direct and solitary result)?

If we could get paid $$$ for getting butthurt then we'd all be living in clover.

In addition you have to PROVE that Apple did this ONLY to increase sales.
 
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I am surprised there are only 60 given the incentives for lawyers to get rich and the number of people who don't understand software and batteries. Which includes all the lawyers. The most anyone is going to get from this lawsuit is the cost of a battery if that. The lawyers stand to make millions.
I'd think if Apple simply gave those greedy whiners a shiny new iPhone of their choice, then the courts wouldn't have to waste its time with those scam artists. One would think those users should only be given the cost of a new iPhone to sooth their mental and financial angst. Asking millions of dollars for a slow iPhone and no physical or mental harm involved seems a bit excessive to me. Asking for more than the price of a new iPhone smacks of pure greed. If I could get back even half the price of a new iPhone, I'd jump at the opportunity. I think of all the money I could have made when Apple came out with a new OS and my older computer slowed to a crawl. I could have gotten a lawyer and sued Apple for coming out with a newer OS which "harmed" my older computer. I should have been a lot greedier if it's that easier to get a free payday from Apple. Today's court system must really be a farce.
 
Simple question to all the folk out there who claim they are a victim of this and brought a new phone as a result. Can you PROVE - with enough evidentiary proof to satisfy a judge - that you ONLY brought the phone BECAUSE OF the 'slowdown'?

Bear in mind this cannot be just verbal testimony - you're going to have to back it up with hard evidence, e.g. a chat transcript from Apple where you where told by Apple that this was the only course of action, or where you informed them that this was your chosen remedy (said chat transcript needs to be backed up with an affidavit confirming it's validity).

The crickets will start chirping in 5...4...
Why can't it be sworn verbal testimony? If I took my phone to an Apple store and the Genius said "there is nothing wrong with this phone" there isn't going to be any written evidence. Now I'll certainly admit one single person's testimony would be taken with a grain of salt, but if you've got multiple people all providing sworn testimony that Apple geniuses told them their phones had no defect wouldn't it then be up to Apple to provide convincing sworn evidence that their genius tests would have caught the throttling issue and therefore the geniuses assertions the phones batteries were working fine were true?

I'm no lawyer, but I do work with human resources and have been through enough legal proceedings to know that oral testimony that is taken and documented through the deposition process is admissible along with direct oral testimony provided by a sworn witness is court. I will grant you hearsay evidence (my friend told me) is not generally allowable, but direct oral testimony doesn't have to be backed up with physical evidence to be admissible.
 
The idea that Apple implemented the battery/performance functions to incentivize users to upgrade is preposterous. Only idiots (and lawyers) would believe that. If anything, it prolongs a device's useful lifetime, discouraging upgrades. Seriously - what would be more likely to cause you to buy a new/different device, occasional slow downs (usually unnoticed), or random unexplained crashes?

This is not really about forcing upgrades (nonsense) or about batteries. I think their power management routine is a patch for an engineering flaw that can cause the system's power draw to exceed design specifications, and the only way they could find to address it via software is to occasionally throttle clock speed. Bug. Workaround. Not a crime.

All products by all companies have flaws. Look at Intel w/Spectre & Meltdown. They are never going to recall every CPU they've ever made. Intel has worked with OEMs to "patch" the issue at the OS level with software updates, which exact a performance hit. Welcome to the real world. The only thing Apple is guilty of is piss-poor PR.
 
They're angry that Apple hasn't made a battery that lasts forever and costs nothing.
I still don't understand why other companies can get away with this crap and only Apple gets caught. There are so many more low-cost Android smartphones using sub-par and practically reject components and absolutely no one is complaining about it. Most of those cheap Android smartphones can barely last a year, and even so, no OS updates are going to be forthcoming from their carriers. Instead, Apple gets screwed-over for not being able to escape the laws of battery chemistry. I guess Apple should have just let those older iPhones keep rebooting themselves. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten sued for helping those whiners. I'd still think it was possible for Apple to be sued for those constant reboots and not doing anything about it. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. That's Apple's lousy fate.
 
I just LOVED how my “dead-and-dying” iPhone 6 slowed to a ridiculous crawl after 10.2.1. Then, after downloading the 11.3 betas, welllllll...... it’s screaming like it did before, with 80% battery capacity that can actually hold a charge through the overnight hours, and no crashing.

I love Apple but I hope these lawsuits take a big bite out of the arrogance they showed to their unwitting customers.
Have you disabled the new "power management" feature or is it off by default?
 
Why can't it be sworn verbal testimony? If I took my phone to an Apple store and the Genius said "there is nothing wrong with this phone" there isn't going to be any written evidence. Now I'll certainly admit one single person's testimony would be taken with a grain of salt, but if you've got multiple people all providing sworn testimony that Apple geniuses told them their phones had no defect wouldn't it then be up to Apple to provide convincing sworn evidence that their genius tests would have caught the throttling issue and therefore the geniuses assertions the phones batteries were working fine were true?

I'm no lawyer, but I do work with human resources and have been through enough legal proceedings to know that oral testimony that is taken and documented through the deposition process is admissible along with direct oral testimony provided by a sworn witness is court. I will grant you hearsay evidence (my friend told me) is not generally allowable, but direct oral testimony doesn't have to be backed up with physical evidence to be admissible.

Because that'll not be accepted by the courts.

Heartland Data Breach - out of 130M affected people, 250 odd were members of the class action lawsuit. Only 11 had enough actually evidence that showed they'd be harmed. They got $200 each.

Those 11 - had HARD evidence. The remaining 240 odd - did not.
 
Well, money for the lawyers, but that's about it. I still don't understand why people are suing Apple for preventing their phones from shutting down as their batteries aged.
Because, my dear astroturfer, they didn't disclose the performance-draining nature of the "fix", and the apparent slowing down of an iPhone encourages needless upgrades. If they had, more people would have replaced the battery instead of buying a new phone.

The only reason that I upgraded my last two phones was because of performance issues in tasks that used to work quickly. THIS time, knowing about the "fix", my wife and I went to the Apple store and got new batteries for our 6S's. Now both of our phones work like new again. Funny that. I don't have to "upgrade" to a jack-less notch-phone anytime soon. Performance is great, and I have no need for more storage. But Apple got $29 instead of $700-800.

Personally, I think that the discovery process in these cases will uncover that Apple has been "battery performance leveling" it's iDevices for longer than they've so far admitted.
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Are you? What do you want? A phone that slows down when you need a battery, or one that crashes and loses data?
False choice. I want a phone that tells me when I need a new battery. Running slower is fine for only so long as it takes me to get to an Apple store for the swap.
 
You do get that you have to PROVE that your were injured by an action (injure in this case meaning you're out of pockets as a direct and solitary result)?

If we could get paid $$$ for getting butthurt then we'd all be living in clover.

In addition you have to PROVE that Apple did this ONLY to increase sales.

Well as long as there's plausible deniability (I don't think there is, here), we should all be so glad to see corporations screw people out of money by secretly kneecapping their devices. ;)

Some people would have proof, though, that they were unhappy with their slow devices, prompting the purchase of a new one.
 
You do get that you have to PROVE that your were injured by an action (injure in this case meaning you're out of pockets as a direct and solitary result)?

If we could get paid $$$ for getting butthurt then we'd all be living in clover.

In addition you have to PROVE that Apple did this ONLY to increase sales.
No, you only have to prove that it significantly increased Apple's sales.

Publicly traded corporations are amoral. Lawsuits are how they learn, because money is all they care about in the end. I'm about as big an Apple fan as it gets. But when they screw up, they need to pay the price so that they'll not be as sloppy/sinister (take your pick) again.
 



Apple's legal battle against accusations that it intentionally slows down older iPhones to incentivize customers to upgrade to newer models will likely take place in one courtroom near the company's headquarters in California.

iphone-6s-battery.jpg

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has disclosed that it will consider consolidating dozens of iPhone performance-related complaints filed against Apple during a hearing scheduled for Thursday, March 29 in Atlanta, Georgia, as is routine for similar cases filed across multiple states.

Apple currently faces 59 putative class actions across 16 district courts in the United States. The total includes 30 before Judge Edward J. Davila in the Northern District of California, where the lawsuits will likely be centralized given their overlapping claims, according to court documents obtained by MacRumors.

Apple faces similar class action lawsuits in at least six other countries, including one filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Canada on Friday, according to Toronto-based law firm Rochon Genova LLP.

The lawsuits have been mounting since late December, when Apple revealed that it throttles the maximum performance of some older iPhone models with chemically aged batteries when necessary in order to prevent the devices from unexpectedly shutting down. The so-called feature was introduced in iOS 10.2.1.

Apple initially didn't mention the change in its iOS 10.2.1 release notes, and in a statement issued a month later, it still only mentioned vague "improvements" resulting in a significant reduction in unexpected shutdowns.

Apple only revealed exactly what the so-called "improvements" were after Primate Labs founder John Poole visualized that some iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 devices suddenly had lower benchmark scores starting with iOS 10.2.1 and iOS 11.2 respectively, despite operating at maximum performance on previous versions.

Apple apologized for its lack of communication in December, and reduced the price of battery replacements to $29 for iPhone 6 and newer through the end of 2018. Apple will also provide users with more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery in iOS 11.3, with the feature already available in beta.

Apple also emphatically denied any kind of planned obsolescence:Keep in mind that Apple is not permanently or persistently slowing down older iPhones. Even if your iPhone is affected, the performance limitations only happen intermittently, and only when the device is completing demanding tasks.

MacRumors previously answered many frequently asked questions about Apple's power management process, which can be disabled in iOS 11.3, or avoided by replacing your iPhone's battery if necessary. Read our guide on how to get an iPhone's battery replaced at an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider.

Article Link: Apple Now Faces More Than 60 Class Actions Over iPhone Slowdowns, Consolidation Likely Next Month

THE BIG QUESTION APPLE WON't ANSWER...
If Apple is only slowing down performance due to the degrading of the battery. Why is my phone still just as slow now when it is plugged in ?!?! My phone stalls just as much on power outlet as without !!
 
THE BIG QUESTION APPLE WON't ANSWER...
If Apple is only slowing down performance due to the degrading of the battery. Why is my phone still just as slow now when it is plugged in ?!?! My phone stalls just as much on power outlet as without !!

Because there's another issue with it...? :rolleyes:
 
If we're talking about the store employees I'm not sure we can characterize them as lying; I'd wager they weren't trained or given the tools to know better. That'd be a management problem.

On another note, can anybody explain to me why the iPhone's battery is expected to hit 80% health roundabout 500 cycles while the iPad and watch are 1000 cycles? Honest question. The only think I can think of is thermal consideration, i.e. phone goes into pockets and the the other two don't - but that's just speculation on my part. I'm asking because this would probably be a whole lot less of an issue if the phones had the same threshold.

Anecdotally my phone is at 516 days of ownership and 495 cycles and my battery is 94%. Is that better than expected? About par? Or worse?
 
You actually have this backwards. The "fix" (slowing down the phone) that Apple implemented would _prevent_ this from happening. Without this "fix" what you are saying would be possible.

The toughest thing here is that these people are going to have to show material damages/losses from Apple slowing down their phone a little bit every now and again. That's going to be UNBELIEVABLY difficult. First: they have to prove that the fix _did_ slow down their phone... then they're going to have to prove that they lost some amount of money because of it.

Seems unlikely.
I wasn't talking agains't Apple's implementation which I believe was the best choice although should have been comunicated to its users.
 
Are you seriously claiming that rechargeable batteries don't weaken in both capacity and voltage over time?

I'm seriously arguing that in 50 plus years of owning things with batteries I have never owned a device that had to be modified to perform worse because less than two years after it was purchased it would randomly crash because it wasn't getting enough voltage. Like I've said a bunch on times, this isn't a battery issue, this is phone issue. And this phone behaves in an unacceptable way when its battery ages normally.

I expected that after two years I might only get 8 hours instead of 10 or 12, because that's how every other rechargeable battery-enabled device I have owed has behaved. It didn't alter the basic functionality of the device.
 
apple battery replacement should be free. apple wants to make money in this matter as well as in every case.
 
Keep in mind that Apple is not permanently or persistently slowing down older iPhones. Even if your iPhone is affected, the performance limitations only happen intermittently, and only when the device is completing demanding tasks.

This sounds more like an opinion than a fact. With all the mounting lawsuits and feedback from users it’s safe to say that they do indeed slow down older iPhones. So whoever wrote that needs to keep that in mind.
 
I'm seriously arguing that in 50 plus years of owning things with batteries I have never owned a device that had to be modified to perform worse because less than two years after it was purchased it would randomly crash because it wasn't getting enough voltage. Like I've said a bunch on times, this isn't a battery issue, this is phone issue. And this phone behaves in an unacceptable way when its battery ages normally.

I expected that after two years I might only get 8 hours instead of 10 or 12, because that's how every other rechargeable battery-enabled device I have owed has behaved. It didn't alter the basic functionality of the device.
Did you have a device that could experience an unexpected shutdown and possible data corruption if its workload got too demanding 50 years ago?

You can't have it both ways. The phone continues to request power as if the battery hasn't aged and occasionally shuts down unexpectedly, or it smooths instantaneous peaks in power needs by throttling the device's hardware during peak workloads to avoid those shutdowns.

Those are the only two options here. Both are unpopular but Apple made a bet on which would be more unpopular. Had they communicated it more clearly, none of this would be an issue.

Turns out users experiencing data corruption due to these unexpected shutdowns is a bit worse than people whining about their 3-year-old phones being slow on a current operating system.
 
Keep in mind that Apple is not permanently or persistently slowing down older iPhones. Even if your iPhone is affected, the performance limitations only happen intermittently, and only when the device is completing demanding tasks.

this is absolutely not true. the core cpu frequency is throttled down "permanently" once the state of charge of the battery drops lower than a certain amount. my iphone6 was running at 600MHz all the time before i got the battery replaced.
 
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Because that'll not be accepted by the courts.

Heartland Data Breach - out of 130M affected people, 250 odd were members of the class action lawsuit. Only 11 had enough actually evidence that showed they'd be harmed. They got $200 each.

Those 11 - had HARD evidence. The remaining 240 odd - did not.

I don't think hard evidence is going to be difficult to come by for some claimants. I imagine it would be fairly easy with a list of Apple ID's, registered iPhone serial numbers, and battery test records to construct a comprehensive list of people who had their phone battery tested by Apple, indicated passed, and then registered a new phone to their account shortly thereafter. That list would almost certainly be admissible as parties who may have suffered a loss, and just like the iBooks conspiracy case compensation could be automatically given to the identified parties without any action on their part.

There will be another category of claimants who had their battery tested, told it was fine, and then bought an Android phone. Again, it will be pretty easy to document the date of the battery test and the date and amount of the subsequent purchase to establish the potential loss once the identified group of consumers is notified.

I would also want the records generated during the iOS 10.2 test phase that showed the number of random shutdowns and after iOS 10.2.1 was released that showed what percentage of phones were throttled.

If I were an attorney that is where I would start, with a set of records provided by Apple that would lead me to identifying as many documentable claimants as possible. If it is high enough percentage of devices I can see Apple offering a settlement where any original purchaser of an iPhone 6 or 6S is entitled to compensation.
 
Or maybe it is but nobody knows the answer. Not having the answer to something does NOT automatically make it complicated.

OK, OK, we're old-fashioned and cheap, but my wife and were holding onto our 5S phones until we were feeling ready (as in waiting for a nice sale...) for iPhone 8. Then we made the mistake of installing iOS 11. Dramatically slowed performance, even when plugged in to charger, so it has nothing to do with the battery, unless I'm missing some information. So I realize that the new iOS has more processing it's doing, but....omigod!
The logical answer is just to buy a couple of model 8, or whatever. But I hate to reward Apple for this behavior. Or maybe I should....it's not like my APPL stock hasn't been good to us.....
 
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