Apple has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a throttling lawsuit, according to Reuters.
The long-running lawsuit saw accusers claim Apple was “throttling” older iPhones to encourage users to upgrade to newer models.
Under the proposed settlement, every Apple users would receive $25 compensation, though the amount could increase or decrease depending on legal fees and the value of claims, to between $310 and $500 million.
All current or former owners of an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE running iOS 10.2.1 or later are eligible for a $25 rebate, though it’s unknown exactly when or how those refunds will be processed.
Apple has admitted no legal wrongdoing during the case, though it has agreed to the settlement, which is expected to be preliminarily approved on April 3, 2020, despite the lawsuit first being filed in December 2017, when Apple claimed it had been throttling performance on older iPhones to stop them from unexpectedly shutting down during use.
It has been described as “one of the largest consumer frauds in history.”
Apple launched a performance management system in an updated version of iOS 10.2, designed to prevent unwanted shutdowns, but the feature wasn’t mentioned in the update.
In the moths that followed, Apple said that the update offered “improvements” to halt the number of shutdowns, but it was only with the launch of iOS 11 when Primate Labs founder John Poole revealed what Apple had done.
The company apologized for the changes and reduced the price of battery replacements to $29 in the US as a gesture of goodwill.
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