They did nothing illegal so keep dreaming. They can alter iOS as they see fit. Read the terms you agreed to.
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Apple Sued Over Meltdown and Spectre in U.S. as iPhone Slowdown Lawsuits Now Total 45
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I agree, Apple should show good faith and make up for not being clear about how the update was going to manage performance and how to fix the problem without having to buy a new phone. However, I’m not sure how they should make up for it and if they were to reimburse customers, how you would quantify in dollars the value of their mistake.
Perhaps not illegal, definitely immoral IMO.
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By using the receipts of purchased items during the determined time period. I'm not sure how to quantify in dollars the value of time and effort many consumers spent trying to resolve their issues.
Really? Immoral. Give me a break. You agreed to the terms and conditions, there is nothing immoral about it. Should they have been upfront, sure, but immorality?
Apple was throttling phones based on "bad" batteries, while they were well above the threshold below which they consider the batteries "bad" (80%). CPU throttling started at a point where the batteries passed Apple's own diagnostic tests and would refuse to replace it, even if the customer was trying to pay for the service.
This on top of the fact that the whole thing was kept secret. So when people's devices became mysteriously slow following an iOS update, even if they decided to run it through diagnostics they'd be told it was fine. Of course, Apple was just as happy letting people think iOS had become too demanding for that device and the only solution is to buy a new one.
Calling it sleazy would be kind. Secretly kneecapping people's devices with no indication as to why or how to address it, and no way to revert back or do anything but buy a new one, even preventing them from replacing the battery if it isn't below 80%, is pretty dirty. I can see it being considered immoral in this situation.
You can’t “prove” someone purchased a phone because of any reason. Batteries already taken care of.
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My phone was affected by this, and it doesn’t bother me. Apple replaced my battery for free and all is good.
The important thing for me is Apple righted the issue.
Throttling the fun is completely necessary. Unless they are randomly making my girlfriends iPhone 6 turn off randomly (it does need a new battery) after disabling the throttling, then I believe what they did was honestly in their customers best interest. Should they have been more transparent? Yes...but they want it to just work...and for that to happen, it would have to slow down.
Would it bother you had they not done so? Because they were trying not to.
They got caught.
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At most, they should have introduced the feature and given users the choice.
But to slow the phone down significantly with no indication that it's being done, or any indication as to why (since the battery issues are being masked and the throttling starts when the battery is "healthy" and Apple will not replace), is pretty dirty.
If you think Apple was doing this because it's in the user's best interest, I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm quite sure Apple was just as happy having people buy new phones because their old ones were slow following an iOS update and no indication of any solution (even if you brought it to the Apple techs).
They "righted" the issue for you and that is great. They have not "righted" the issue with everyone hence my post.
Did they replace yours for free?
Apologizing after being caught and forced to do damage control isn't really the same. My options are to pay to replace the battery (despite it showing as "Healthy" by Apple) or upgrade to the latest iOS to be able to disable the "feature"... but iOS 11 is the death knell of the iPhone 6.
Of course, they could just let me go back to iOS 9 and all would be great again, but Apple doesn't give a hoot what people want.
Yes, battery was replaced for free.
Maybe Apple should allow going back to iOS 9...oh but the bugs.
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Apple will never make everybody happy. That is a given.
The 6s battery recall. I waited an entire year before finding out my phone was eligible.
The point of all cases where manufacturer is sued for Meltdown and Spectre is that the manufacturer has been selling known faulty devices without telling the public about it.
If a manufacturer is knowingly selling faulty goods without telling the customers about the faults, it deserves to get sued. It really does not matter for the customer why the good were faulty - the manufacturer is still the responsive party.
Probably all complex high-tech products are "faulty" - CPU errata, software patches for partly hardware problems not long after product release (usually with a small performance loss), etc. Given the lead time for manufacture at scale, it's virtually certain that problems will be discovered between design finalization and product release; but as long as software workarounds (even if not perfect) are possible, it doesn't seem to cause millions of items in initial inventory to be scrapped, nor even release to be delayed until all known issues are somewhat addressed. There always has to be a "good-enough" point, where anything not a total show-stopper is not allowed to further delay release. And while eventual disclosure of security faults is very desirable, immediate widespread disclosure, giving those with malice the same amount of time to explore as those developing countermeasures, is probably not desirable.
Heck, even low-tech products can have faults that leave some risk on the consumer as to suitability. Tangerines and radishes may have flavor varying from bland to intense, with no visible indication; a portion of lumber will contain hidden flaws, etc. This is known in advance, perhaps not for any individual item, but to be a typical property of the type of item, where some cost for trial and error will be born by the consumer that expects the highest quality.
At some point, the customer is not merely the recipient of a product, but the final stage of testing; in a sense, the very design isn't truly final until after enough millions are using the product to be clear about what known issues are not good enough.
That doesn't mean all faults are excusable! But certainly for computing devices, the cost of patch deployment and a small (say usually less than 10%) performance hit can almost be expected by any reasonable consumer. Unless the product controls a nuclear reactor, a life-essential medical device, a vehicle, or something incredibly expensive to replace like a spacecraft (and even those aren't perfect!), nobody would be willing to pay for the cost of a product with no undisclosed faults at release time. For all that people do need to be aware enough to not neglect keeping up with patches, Meltdown and Spectre are IMO minor compared to some 90's era bugs that could cause errors (FDIV) or crashes (F00F), and which were severe enough to result in some degree of CPU replacement (not a viable option on small portable devices with non-socketed CPUs).