I. TECHNOLOGY8 Apple battery lawsuit: Millions of iPhone users could get payouts in legal actionMillions of iPhone users could be eligible for payouts, following the launch of a legal claim accusing Apple of secretly slowing the performance of older phones.
Justin Gutmann alleges the company misled users over an upgrade that it said would enhance performance but, in fact, slowed phones down. He is seeking damages of around £768m for up to 25 million UK iPhone users. Apple says it has “never” intentionally shortened the life of its products.
The claim, which has been filed with the Competition Appeal Tribunal, alleges Apple slowed down the performance of older iPhones, in a process known as “throttling”, in order to avoid expensive recalls or repairs. It relates to the introduction of a power management tool released in a software update to iPhone users in January 2017, to combat performance issues and stop older devices from abruptly shutting down.
Mr. Gutmann, a consumer champion, says the information about the tool was not included in the software update download description at the time, and that the company failed to make clear that it would slow down devices.
He claims that Apple introduced this tool to hide the fact that iPhone batteries may have struggled to run the latest iOS software, and that rather than recalling products or offering replacement batteries, the firm instead pushed
