Apple's Plan to Pay $500 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over 'Secretly Throttling' Older iPhones Gets Preliminary Approval

[MacRumors]

Apple in March agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the company of "secretly throttling" older iPhone models, and now the settlement has been preliminarily approved by a judge.

According to Law360, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila in a Zoom hearing provided preliminary approval but said that he wants to extend the final approval deadlines due to the ongoing health crisis. Apple's lawyers have been instructed to propose a new date for a settlement approval hearing that will take place sometime in December.

If the settlement is approved, it will put an end to dozens of lawsuits that were levied against Apple and ultimately consolidated into one class-action suit in May 2018. The lawsuits were filed against Apple after Apple confirmed that it introduced software to throttle the maximum performance of some older iPhone models with chemically aged batteries no longer capable of supporting full power to prevent these devices from shutting down unexpectedly.

Apple 2017 released iOS 10.2.1 with performance management software that had the throttling built in, but made little mention of the change in the software's release notes. The throttling was discovered by Primate Labs founder John Poole when he noticed lower than expected benchmark scores, and there was a major public outcry after it was discovered Apple was limiting performance.

Apple apologized for its lack of communication and ultimately launched a battery repair program that dropped the price of battery replacements to $29 through the end of 2018. Because the throttling kicks in when an iPhone has a degraded battery, a battery replacement effectively fixes the issue.

Apple in iOS 11.3 introduced a new feature that allows users to see the current health of their batteries, and it turned off the performance management feature by default until an unexpected shutdown occurs. Though agreeing to settle the case, Apple has maintained that it did nothing wrong legally.

If approved, the settlement will provide every affected iPhone user in the class with $25. The amount could increase or decrease somewhat depending on legal fees and the aggregate value of the approved claims. If the payouts, attorney fees, and expenses don't add up to at least $310 million, class members could receive up to $500 apiece until that minimum is reached.

Apple has email addresses for most class members, so attorneys for both sides believe there will be a high claims rate.

The lawsuit includes all former or current U.S. iPhone owners that have the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and SE, running either iOS 10.2.1 or later or iOS 11.2 or later, and who ran these versions of iOS prior to December 21, 2017.

Article Link: Apple's Plan to Pay $500 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over 'Secretly Throttling' Older iPhones Gets Preliminary Approval

 

[alitarbegshe]

Now about those iPads that are throttled with no option for battery management.......

 

[axboi87]

I have frequent gripes and a love/hate relationship with Apple. Really don't consider myself a fanboy....but this is one of those things where this was actually a great engineering feature that Apple just wasn't forthcoming enough with. Most phones would just start flaking out when their batteries start to degrade....this actually allows you to get much longer life out of a battery by compromising cpu voltage to prevent failure. The huge push to accuse Apple of malice on this is a perfect example of the scourge that is ignorant populism.

 

[Mr. Heckles]

Now about those iPads that are throttled with no option for battery management.......

I don’t think they are. If they do, my battery must really suck then. I think this was only on iPhones.

I have frequent gripes and a love/hate relationship with Apple. Really don't consider myself a fanboy....but this is one of those things where this was actually a great engineering feature that Apple just wasn't forthcoming enough with. Most phones would just start flaking out when their batteries start to degrade....this actually allows you to get much longer life out of a battery by compromising cpu voltage to prevent failure. The huge push to accuse Apple of malice on this is a perfect example of the scourge that is ignorant populism.

I agree! People who think I love Apple, I tell them I just dislike them less than I do Windows. Apple should have been upfront with it, and this could have been avoided. It’s actually a great idea to have iPhones last longer then needing a charger plugged in every 2 hours on older iPhones.

 

[decypher44]

Can’t wait to get my check for $0.05!

 

[ipponrg]

Is this an example of actions speak louder than words?
[automerge]1589580129[/automerge]

this is one of those things where this was actually a great engineering feature that Apple just wasn't forthcoming enough with. Most phones would just start flaking out when their batteries start to degrade....this actually allows you to get much longer life out of a battery by compromising cpu voltage to prevent failure.

Not sure if this was a great(?) engineering feature or a passive way to push people to upgrade their iPhone. I think if Apple was forthcoming about it, I would've preferred my battery to die than to slow down the phone.

 

[supergt]

Instead of a $25 Apple store credit, I’d prefer an affordable battery replacement program for ALL old iPhones.

 

[konqerror]

Two sentences missing from the release notes cost them $500 Million. Probably should learn a lesson from that.

 

[fs454]

Is this an example of actions speak louder than words?
[automerge]1589580129[/automerge]


Not sure if this was a great(?) engineering feature or a passive way to push people to upgrade their iPhone. I think if Apple was forthcoming about it, I would've preferred my battery to die than to slow down the phone.

And still to this day, people are alarmingly misinformed about this simple issue.

It's not just having the battery die a little earlier. Either the phone randomly powers down at any battery level under sudden loads (like launching an app) since the aged battery can't sustain voltage spikes like it could 500 cycles prior, or it throttles back slightly to allow for you to not lose everything you were doing and 90 seconds to reboot. Apple chose not to allow the phone to power off. You've got the choice now, I hope you're now using it with the setting in the "will randomly turn off" position.

 

[Cosmosent]

It's a Drop in the Bucket of what it should be !

 

[edgonzalez32]

I have frequent gripes and a love/hate relationship with Apple. Really don't consider myself a fanboy....but this is one of those things where this was actually a great engineering feature that Apple just wasn't forthcoming enough with. Most phones would just start flaking out when their batteries start to degrade....this actually allows you to get much longer life out of a battery by compromising cpu voltage to prevent failure. The huge push to accuse Apple of malice on this is a perfect example of the scourge that is ignorant populism.

if it was solely great engineering, then why didn’t they say it in the first place?

 

[segfaultdotorg]

I don't want any money, just give me a free 512GB iPhone 12 Pro since it's time to upgrade my 6s anyway.

 

[ignatius345]

I have frequent gripes and a love/hate relationship with Apple. Really don't consider myself a fanboy....but this is one of those things where this was actually a great engineering feature that Apple just wasn't forthcoming enough with. Most phones would just start flaking out when their batteries start to degrade....this actually allows you to get much longer life out of a battery by compromising cpu voltage to prevent failure. The huge push to accuse Apple of malice on this is a perfect example of the scourge that is ignorant populism.

Yeah, it's a great engineering solution. I don't think anyone is arguing against that (and if they are, they're wrong).

Where it gets tricky is the "wasn't forthcoming" part. People's older phones slowed down and, not knowing why, they bought new phones from Apple because of that. Until "thottlegate" came to light, Apple didn't tell customers they could pay to have their worn-out batteries replaced to enable their phones to run at full speed.

Even if you give Apple the benefit of the doubt here and attribute this to poor communication instead of manipulation of their customers, they still benefitted from people buying new phones to replace throttled phones. That's why there's a case here.

 

[NickName99]

if it was solely great engineering, then why didn’t they say it in the first place?

It was definitely great engineering, and doubtless caused a great number of old iPhones to remain reliable when they otherwise would have become unstable due to old batteries.

It wasn’t a good product planning decision not to make it a visible setting when it was first added. If they had though, people would have found something to complain about. “Apple is just trying to sell batteries” or whatever. It was wise to implement the year long $39 battery replacement program when they made the setting visible. It must have frustrated 3rd party shops who couldn’t make any money replacing batteries for a year though. ?

 

[now i see it]

$500 million is a slap on the wrist seeing that they made billions from people being "forced" to upgrade their slowed down devices to newer ones that were actually usable. Despicable.

BTW- to those defending the throttling: it's BS. I'm still using a 6 year old iPhone 6+ with THE SAME ORIGINAL BATTERY (on iOS 9) and I've never needed my phone throttled to "improve my user experience"

 

[I7guy]

$500 million is a slap on the wrist seeing that they made billions from people being "forced" to upgrade their slowed down devices to newer ones that were actually usable. Despicable....

You don’t know whether Apple made $0 or $10b from allegedly upgrading due to this. There is nobody that can prove any critical mass or intention. Even someone claiming as such on this forum. (My 6s has the battery replaced)

This is an expensive year for Apple.

 

[tranceking26]

They should have had the courage to tell people on these devices about a new setting in a update log, or go one step further and do a press release or something.

Given the options maybe most folk would have enabled it.

 

[JosephAW]

Okay send me my $1 and the lawyers $1,000,000

 

[Naaaaak]

> but made little mention of the change in the software's release notes

Good release notes with a switch to change the new default would have saved $500 million.

 

[MikeSmoke]

My 6s will probably get me on the list to get a piece of the payout. I don’t have the nerve to take the money. I would feel like a thief who was beneath contempt. If I have to take it the money will be given to one of Apple’s favorite charities.

 

[4jasontv]

You don’t know whether Apple made $0 or $10b from allegedly upgrading due to this. There is nobody that can prove any critical mass or intention. Even someone claiming as such on this forum. (My 6s has the battery replaced)

This is an expensive year for Apple.

So we assume 10b and double it to ensure others hear the lesson.

 

[Abazigal]

Apple’s fault was not communicating they were doing that. They really dropped the ball there on explaining it.

Thats literally what was happening. The battery no longer had the juice to supply the SOC, and so in demanding tasks would simply shut the phone down.

Low performance mode gimped the SOC just enough that the phone wouldn't crap out when you were doing things, at the obvious cost of performance. This wasn't some conspiracy, it was very logical.

And since iOS restores full performance once a healthy battery is put in, that only helped explain what Apple was trying to do.

But again, communication issue. Not a conspiracy. The batteries do degrade, depending on your use case quite badly in less than a year. That impacts what the SOC is able to draw on and do, if it can't reliably be powered of course its gonna go to ****.

 

[0924487]

how do I join?

 

[/V\acpower]

Almost every time I go out for a while knowing I won't be able to charge my iPhone I activate low power mode, which does throttle the CPU (in the 40% ballpark). I did that with my iPhone 6, my iPhone 8 and now my iPhone XS. Speed wise I notice no difference at all when using the phone.

So when peoples claim that this CPU throttling was a way to make phone feel sluggish and slow so they would change phone, it is complete BS.

Peoples have been complaining for years that their old iPhones got slower. But at the time Apple weren't throttling cpu, it was just older cpu who were pushed to their limits with new iOS functionnality.

It's also very funny when peoples are complaining that by asking 80$ for a battery replacement, Apple is giving them no choice but buy a brand new 800$ phone.

 

[0924487]

Instead of a $25 Apple store credit, I’d prefer an affordable battery replacement program for ALL old iPhones.

No one said it's a store credit. In the court, no one will operate on non-standard, non-liquid currencies. A dollar in court is a dollar in the bank.