Apple Starts Sending 'Batterygate' Settlement Payments to iPhone Users

[henkie]

Indeed they. Key point, they tell you.

Apple didn't. There was zero way to know that anything was happening.

This! It is as if your car just suddenly stops working with still 60 miles to go or losing HP when there is still 100 miles to go on a tank. Without any warning. But let the Koolaid gang drink it. Again: if it would be Samsung doing the exact same thing the reactions would be pretty different from the same Koolaid gang I presume.

 

[gnipgnop]

Indeed they. Key point, they tell you.

Apple didn't. There was zero way to know that anything was happening.

FYI: the phone shutting off without warning is no different. Where was the lawsuit for that? It was a standard safety feature in all mobile phones.

 

[gnipgnop]

This! It is as if your car just suddenly stops working with still 60 miles to go or losing HP when there is still 100 miles to go on a tank. Without any warning. But let the Koolaid gang drink it. Again: if it would be Samsung doing the exact same thing the reactions would be pretty different from the same Koolaid gang I presume.

Without warning...like, say, the phone suddenly shutting off because the system (unknown to the user) had just requested a voltage that the battery couldn't provide?

 

[supergt]

The first part of that sentence is a possibility. Just like it's a possibility that the lawyers who filed the lawsuit were concerned that they might get less. No guarantees when it goes to trial. Coming to an agreement out of court creates a guarantee.

The second part of that sentence is much less of a possibility. Apple never removed the throttling feature from the OS. What does that tell you about internal intent for the feature?

I’m not a lawyer but I’d imagine the communications investigated could be broad and involve top brass at Apple. So they’d be concerned not just about this but other topics they don’t want made public. The reputations risk is probably worth the $500M to make it go away. We will never know.

 

[ticzon]

Because many folks have no record of their iphone serial number.



What watt charger do you use?
I wonder if folks with rapid battery capacity loss is due to a high wattage charger (i.e 20 watt), and charge daily to 100% generating a lot of repeated charging cycles.

For LI battery longevity it is best to charge only to ~80% with a lower wattage charger (e.g. 12 watt). My iphone battery is 2.5 years old and still at 90% reported capacity.

p.s. Battery replacement is relatively cheap, no need to use a new battery as a reason for getting a new iPhone 🙂

I have to agree with method of charging of the iPhone battery: I charge it at 20% up to 80%. My iPhone 14 Pro Max’s battery (purchased on released day) is still at 100% life.

 

[gnipgnop]

I’m not a lawyer but I’d imagine the communications investigated could be broad and involve top brass at Apple. So they’d be concerned not just about this but other topics they don’t want made public. The reputations risk is probably worth the $500M to make it go away. We will never know.

The communications would need to be related to the development of the throttling feature and the rollout of the update. So it wouldn't be broad in terms of the subject matter. It has to relate to the lawsuit. Like I said, the fact that Apple never removed the throttling feature doesn't really support the idea that corporate intended to mislead customers by adding it in to the OS.

And the original amount of the lawsuit was $2 billion. $500 million is still a lot of $$ but it's 1/4 of what the lawyers filing the lawsuit were looking for.

 

[Shirasaki]

Without warning...like, say, the phone suddenly shutting off because the system (unknown to the user) had just requested a voltage that the battery couldn't provide?

So you prefer a phone that’s slowed to crawl (practically unusable) but still on over a suddenly turned off device.

I would prefer it shuts off to protect itself from further damage than trying to hang on and make a bad situation worse.

 

[mastaofdisasta]

Just curious, for those that submitted claims, how did you find your old serial numbers for these devices? I used to have a few of these eligible devices but I sold them off on Facebook marketplace many moons ago and didn’t make a note of the serial numbers at the time

 

[TraceyS/FL]

Was part of this you could not get the settlement if you took the cheap battery replacement? That sticks in my head, and I could really use the $90 this week.

oh well… lol

 

[krull1015]

In todays mail…..

I apologize this is related to another class action lawsuit…. Poor Apple 🍎 😊

 

[tcphoto1]

Evidently, getting throttled is worth $46. I imagine the lawyers were the winners...

 

[gnipgnop]

So you prefer a phone that’s slowed to crawl (practically unusable) but still on over a suddenly turned off device.

I would prefer it shuts off to protect itself from further damage than trying to hang on and make a bad situation worse.

That’s not how the throttling works. It’s not designed to slow the phone to a “crawl” by default. It’s designed to slow it enough so that the voltage demand won’t be too high for the battery to provide. That means the amount of slowdown will vary depending on the app being used and the specific situation per the battery.

Obviously if your phone battery is at end-of-life with capacity at 80% or lower then you’re more likely to experience throttling due to the battery no longer being able to provide a consistent level of voltage above 20% charge.

Example: when French regulatory authorities fined Apple $25 million for the same issue they concluded that the throttling "especially" affected users with older batteries. That conclusion directly contradicted the reason used for the fine, i.e., that some users who installed the update thought they needed a new battery or a new phone. They DID need a new battery at the very least according to what the French study found.

 

[mikeylikesit]

I was able to find my serial number of phones i have had in the past long after I had sold or traded them in.

I don’t think you needed the serial number. I received 3 payments today and when I submitted the claim I may have had the last phone but not the first two. The process of submitting the claim accessed information from your iCloud account and historical information of the phones you owned and when you had them registered to your account. Apple had that information and confirmed it when you submitted the claim.

 

[mikeylikesit]

The tech media STILL can't report on this issue correctly.

Throttling was not just for end-of-life batteries. It was also for new batteries that were operating below 20% charge or were operating in cold temperatures. All three of those scenarios could result in voltage demands that the battery couldn't supply which could potentially do permanent damage to the phone hardware.

This was always one of the stupidest lawsuits from a consumer perspective. Without throttling, the phone would simply shut off in either of those three scenarios. All the throttling did was allow the user to continue what they were doing albeit in a slower speed.

The reason why Apple paid such a high amount in the settlement was because they didn’t disclose that throttling would downgrade performance and then when customers where bring the phones in to be checked out many were told they needed to upgrade. There were many people who upgraded when they didn’t need to.

 

[mikeylikesit]

THANK YOU......
to everyone that didn't file a claim...
Because of you, we got more than we were expecting...

Yes!!!!

 

[mikeylikesit]

False. As soon as the "issue" started to make headlines, Tim Cook came out with his BP Oil "I'm sorry" nonsense and started offering free batteries. That was the same as admitting fault, and the entire public took it that way. Hence why Apple is being forced to pay up.

Had Apple simply stayed silent, or rather said, "The recent reports of Apple deliberately slowing down your phone to force you to upgrade are tabloid nonsense, that morons love to proliferate. How the iPhone CPU behaves and performs under various conditions is something that is tightly managed by Apple's engineers, for the betterment and safety of the device and the users. End of story."...it would have ended, and people would have moved to the next imagined controversy. Instead this failure of a leader validated internet morons, the worst thing anyone could ever do, because he stupidly thought it would avoid worse PR.

I guess you didn’t get a payout? Were you entitled to apply for a payout at the time and decided not to because you didn’t see anything wrong with what Apple did?

 

[mikeylikesit]

I went for the $29 battery replacement so I passed on the settlement. In retrospect I guess I should have cashed out. Oh well.

Getting the cheap battery replacement didn’t prevent you for submitting a claim. I also received a $29 battery replacement in addition to $276 for three claims.

 

[redbeard331]

And now, a class action lawsuit for everyone who owned these devices but didn’t sign up for the class action because they weren’t aware of it.

The 15 pro one should be a biggie when it happens. Ya’ll think batterygate is bad.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Why am I not entitled to know that Apple is slowing down my phone, even if it's justified?

Why ARE you entitled to it? How weird it is to think that you are. You bought a phone. The phone needs to do phone things. If it does those things, Apple's obligation to you is met. You aren't entitled to a specific Geek Bench score.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Why ARE you entitled to it? How weird it is to think that you are. You bought a phone. The phone needs to do phone things. If it does those things, Apple's obligation to you is met. You aren't entitled to a specific Geek Bench score.

I don't even know what geek bench is, but I do know that the Genius Bar telling someone to get a new phone when their was slowing down is a garbage way to do business. That happened to my brother, not long after this happened..it was the battery, and they didn't tell him that, or they didn't know. Either way, communication would have been the solution.

Why am I entitled? It's my phone, full stop, end of story. It's not theirs. As I stated earlier, this is like VW doing a ECU update to my vehicle slowing it down under certain conditions.. even if it's a good thing, I should know, and I should know why and specifically, when it's happening.

Apple knew this and that they would lose in court; that's why they quickly settled and Tim Cook personally apologized and said they would do better in the future. They know they chose poorly and handled it unethically. You don't degrade sometimes device, even necessarily, with telling them.

 

[gnipgnop]

The reason why Apple paid such a high amount in the settlement was because they didn’t disclose that throttling would downgrade performance and then when customers where bring the phones in to be checked out many were told they needed to upgrade. There were many people who upgraded when they didn’t need to.

The only way for an iPhone user to experience regular and noticeable throttling was to have a battery that was EOL (end of life) at 80% capacity or lower. Those batteries were no longer capable of providing a consistent flow of voltage above 20% charge. Those customers DID need a new battery OR a new phone.

Proof of that is the French regulatory findings that I already posted about. It was “especially” iPhones with old batteries that were affected. That is entirely in line with what Apple said they were doing.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

The only way for an iPhone user to experience regular and noticeable throttling was to have a battery that was EOL (end of life) at 80% capacity or lower. Those batteries were no longer capable of providing a consistent flow of voltage above 20% charge. Those customers DID need a new battery OR a new phone.

Proof of that is the French regulatory findings that I already posted about. It was “especially” iPhones with old batteries that were affected. That is entirely in line with what Apple said they were doing.

It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter that they did. It only matters that they didn't communicate what they did and the end-user had no way of knowing, at the time, what the health of their battery was, or that it was being throttled.

 

[gnipgnop]

I don't even know what geek bench is, but I do know that the Genius Bar telling someone to get a new phone when their was slowing down is a garbage way to do business. That happened to my brother, not long after this happened..it was the battery, and they didn't tell him that, or they didn't know. Either way, communication would have been the solution.

Why am I entitled? It's my phone, full stop, end of story. It's not theirs. As I stated earlier, this is like VW doing a ECU update to my vehicle slowing it down under certain conditions.. even if it's a good thing, I should know, and I should know why and specifically, when it's happening.

Apple knew this and that they would lose in court; that's why they quickly settled and Tim Cook personally apologized and said they would do better in the future. They know they chose poorly and handled it unethically. You don't degrade sometimes device, even necessarily, with telling them.

The reality is that if your iPhone battery is at 80% capacity or lower then an Apple Store employee suggesting a new phone is not unethical. That is one way of doing it.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

The reality is that if your iPhone battery is at 80% capacity or lower then an Apple Store employee suggesting a new phone is not unethical. That is one way of doing it.

The other way is to let the customer know that their battery is degraded and can be replaced, but instead he heard at the Apple Store, from a Genius, that "it's old and worn out and there is nothing we can do." Being 14 at the time, he didn't know any better.

That is unethical at minimum, and lying by omission at worst.

Now we can just look it up in settings. That should been there day 1.

 

[gnipgnop]

It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter that they did. It only matters that they didn't communicate what they did and the end-user had no way of knowing, at the time, what the health of their battery was, or that it was being

The other way is to let the customer know that their battery is degraded and can be replaced, but instead he heard at the Apple Store, from a Genius, that "it's old and worn out and there is nothing we can do." Being 14 at the time, he didn't know any better.

That is unethical at minimum, and lying by omission at worst.

Regardless of what an individual employee told your brother, Apple did provide battery replacement at that time. That’s why they dropped the price down to $29 when the tech media hyped the throttling angle. People also complained that Apple wouldn’t replace their battery if it was above 80% capacity due to supply constraints.