Millions of iPhone users may be entitled to payouts, with a new lawsuit that claims Apple secretly slows down its older phones for battery life.
According to the BBC’s report, a claim made by Justin Gutmann says that an update made by the company with the claim of improving phone performance actually slows down phones. Gutmann has filed a lawsuit for around £768m in damages for the 25 million or so iPhone users in the UK.
The lawsuit, filed with the Competition Court of Appeals, alleges that Apple slowed down devices to avoid costly recalls and repairs and made batteries look better than they actually are.
This case includes a power management tool introduced with the software update for iPhone in January 2017. This tool was intended to fix performance issues and sudden shutdown problems of older devices. However, Gutmann says that this tool does not reveal the software update download, and the company does not inform users that this update will slow down devices. Apple claims that with this update, it aims to avoid the expense of recalling products or offering new batteries by concealing that iPhone batteries have trouble running the latest iOS software for enough time.
Apple, predictably, denies these claims.
Devices included in the case include iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X models.