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UK Legal Action Seeks Damages for 25 Million iPhone Users Over 'Throttling' Devices With Degraded Batteries

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A UK consumer champion has launched a £750 million ($907 million) legal claim against Apple over the 2017 iPhone throttling controversy that saw a software update effectively slow down older devices (via The Guardian).

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Market researcher Justin Gutmann has filed the claim with the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal seeking the damages for up to 25 million UK owners of a range of older iPhone models affected by the update.

The claim relates to Apple's introduction of power management features for older iPhones to prevent unexpected shutdowns during times of peak power draw on devices with degraded batteries. These power management features throttle the processor on older iPhones with less than optimal batteries, resulting in slower performance.

Gutmann claims that Apple introduced the features to disguise the fact that iPhone batteries were unable to cope with new iOS processing demands and that rather than recall products or replace batteries, Apple instead pushed users to download the software updates.
"Instead of doing the honorable and legal thing by their customers and offering a free replacement, repair service or compensation, Apple instead misled people by concealing a tool in software updates that slowed their devices by up to 58%," Mr Gutmann said.

"I'm launching this case so that millions of iPhone users across the UK will receive redress for the harm suffered by Apple's actions.

"If this case is successful, I hope dominant companies will re-evaluate their business models and refrain from this kind of conduct," he added.
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Though introduced early in 2017, the power management features were not widely publicized until late 2017, leading many customers to feel deceived by Apple.

Apple apologized the same year for not better explaining how battery health could impact performance. It has since implemented a policy offering low-price no-questions-asked battery replacements for out-of-warranty devices.

In 2020, the company also agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle a long-running class action lawsuit in the United States that accused the company of "secretly throttling" older ‌iPhone‌ models. Apple has faced similar lawsuits in Belgium, Chile, Spain, Italy, and Portugal.

Gutmann's claim relates to the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X models. It seeks compensation for each model owned and is an opt-out claim, meaning customers will not need to actively join the case to seek damages.

Commenting on the claim, Apple told The Guardian: "We have never, and would never, do anything to … degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.

"Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that."

Article Link: UK Legal Action Seeks Damages for 25 Million iPhone Users Over 'Throttling' Devices With Degraded Batteries
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/16/uk-legal-claim-25-million-users-battery-throttling/
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And how do I get anything from this? No longer have my old iPhone 6S. Which I acquired at a low price from a tiny company (they bought one for a customer who the said they didn't want it). So a severe lack of records.

To be honest, from a personal point of view, I think both customers and Apple have woken up to the issues. I wouldn't still have the 6S - upgraded to 12 Pro - and limited storage and memory were probably more of an impact.

(Phones should not be released with too little storage to manage a software update. Which did happen - until Apple introduced their workround.)
 
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So... a $1 iTunes credit for the user while the lawyers are collecting thousands if not more?

I mean of course, Apple was at fault by not telling anyone they're doing it. But now that there's battery health percentage and Apple being transparent about battery replacement costs, I think it's a done deal.
 
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What a joke of a lawsuit. With newer iOS and Apple's support for older devices, they introduced basically what computers have been doing for years. Apple's other options were not to support older devices and forcing people to buy newer ones or simply shutting their phones to make the UX even worse.
 
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Reactions: SlaveToSwift, alejandrooo, KeithBN and 21 others
Torn on this one (regardless of what I personally think about 'Throttlegate'). I'm all for consumer protection, but really don't want to see the UK move towards a class action culture like in the US where everything just seems to be an opportunity for lawyers to get richer in the name of championing consumers, who end up coming away with barely anything.
 
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ian87w said:
So... a $1 iTunes credit for the user while the lawyers are collecting thousands if not more?

I mean of course, Apple was at fault by not telling anyone they're doing it. But now that there's battery health percentage and Apple being transparent about battery replacement costs, I think it's a done deal.
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But people buying the phone and suffering the throttling before it was ‘a done deal’ should be compensated. If you speed while driving in a certain day and get caught you’ll still have to pay a fine, even if you respect the limit the following days.
 
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A lot of people fail to recognize that Apple is actually run by people who have little to no ethical boundaries and would screw over someone in their own family to help increase their own wealth. I am not talking about the creative and innovative side of Apple, I am talking about the “publicly traded” business side of Apple that have very influential investor groups from the likes of the “vampire squid” Goldman Sachs, or other equally reprehensible parasites, such as BlackRock… those are the influencers driving theses types of things. Hopefully the good parts of Apple doesn’t get sucked into being more like those bad parts of Apple.

It’s because of things like this that i am cynical about other things thats proclaimed about Apple, such as them being our privacy watchdogs, and thwarting over reach of big brother. When the documents that came from Snowden/Manning and made it onto Wikileaks, I tend to believe Apple is in bed as they can be with the surveillance states coming at the direction of many of the governing bodies around the world, but has relied upon (with help of establishment controlled media) the “persona” and “narrative” that they are not like Microsoft… I want to believe Apple is better than that… but sadly i can’t… I have to allow reality to dictate what i believe and influences me. And in reality, Apple is not the goody two shoes, pro consumer, pro civil rights, advocate they want everyone to think they are… its a nice dream though.
 
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That worked out well for Apple. Deny the iPhone 6 had a design flaw that made its CPU vulnerable to shutdowns from instantaneous electricity current drops, the kind that are typical and expected of aging batteries, release a stealth software update that clocks the processor down by half to lower its current draw to avoid said shutdowns, offer a battery replacement program that doesn't fix the issue but delays it by a year or two, pay some small expected fines and settlements...and save billions of dollars by avoiding a recall for tens of millions of phones.
 
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User 6502 said:
But people buying the phone and suffering the throttling before it was ‘a done deal’ should be compensated. If you speed while driving in a certain day and get caught you’ll still have to pay a fine, even if you respect the limit the following days.
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Not sure about the analogy. You going over the speed limit broke the law. Plain and simple. You broke the law, you pay the fine.
 
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xkam1x said:
I have had laptops my whole life and every single one of them had the ability to throttle itself due to low/degraded battery..
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It doesn't matter, if lawyers can't get a massive payout from a company. This has become a common theme now. You would be daft to believe this is about customers or their devices being slowed down.
 
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