Recently, the tech giant Apple has admitted to paying a settlement of up to $500 million, following a lawsuit blaming the company of intentionally reducing the performance of older iPhones to boost the customers to buy newer models or fresh batteries.
Well, many iPhone owners believe that Apple intentionally slowed down their old devices as it launched new models.
Thus, some of them may be in line for a small payday: therefore, the tech giant Apple has agreed to pay some iPhone owners about $25 each to resolve such charges.
Moreover, the settlement claims a federal judge’s approval, and the judgment is demanded to take several months.
The conditional settlement, expecting a judge’s approval, would settle a class-action lawsuit by customers across the U.S. alleging Apple committed “one of the largest consumer scams in history” by quietly slowing down the iPhone performance to address obstacles with batteries and processors.
Well, Apple, in the settlement agreement, declared it “vigorously” opposed the consumers’ claims, and it cut a deal “to reduce the burdens, disturbances, expense, and uncertainty of protracted litigation.”
iPhone Owners will get $25 Each
The amount that qualified iPhone owners would get depends on how many phones were allowed. As per the settlement agreement recorded Friday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, if increasing the number of permitted phones by $25 provides a sum higher than $500 million, the cash payment for all phones would be charged on a pro-rata basis.
$500 Million is Not a Big Deal for Apple
To calm customers, the tech giant Apple also allowed replacing batteries of picked phones at a discounted price of $29.
Not only this, but it also gave an iOS feature to switch off the performance slowdown. By its iOS 11 update, the iPhone-maker also combined functionality to provide you more detailed information about your device’s battery.
But $500 million wouldn’t upset a cash-rich company like Apple, as the result shows the value of being honest with customers.
Indeed the new iPhone lawsuit is distinct from the ebooks situation in many respects; it doesn’t look great that Apple is giving out a nine-figure settlement linked to selling customers. It apparently would have seen a lot worse and cost Apple a lot more.
Many Apple iPhone owners said their phone performance decreased after they installed Apple software updates.
The customers dispute that Apple’s software updates purposely demoted the performance of older models to assist customers in unnecessarily upgrade to newer models or install new batteries.
In February, France hit the company with a $27 million fine for the purposely making controversy; and Italy urged the tech giant Apple to pay $11.4 million in 2018.
While on the other side, the lawyers of Apple said that the problems were mainly due to high usage, temperature fluctuations, and other issues; however, its engineers worked to address the difficulties as quickly as possible.
Apple did the same thing in 2018 when they released firmware updates for mobile phones that cause serious malfunctions and slows down the old mobile phones, which forces users in replacing them.
So, what do you think about this? Simply share all your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
Follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook for Daily cyber security & hacking news updates.
