Apple would have to pay 750 million pounds if it loses the lawsuit imposed in the United Kingdom by a consumer advocate.
The apple company adds one more demand to its portfolio. According to The Guardian, Apple is facing consumer rights activist Justin Gutmann in the Competition Court of Appeal over slowing down iPhones in 2017.
Those from Cupertino have already admitted that an update was released that year to slow down iPhones with old batteries to prevent them from turning off suddenly. But now, five years later, Gutmann says Apple didn’t disclose its plans to users before doing so, and the company didn’t give users the option to turn off the update to avoid it.
In the event that the lawsuit goes ahead and Apple is declared guilty, the company may face a fine of 750 million pounds sterling, about 877 million euros, which would be distributed among the affected users.
The complaint covers the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X models. According to the plaintiff, Apple introduced the slowdown feature to hide the fact that older batteries old ones could no longer cope with new OS updates. “Instead of doing the honorable and legal thing for its customers and offering a free battery replacement, repair or compensation, Apple tricked people by hiding a tool in software updates that slowed down their devices by up to 58%.”
For its part, Apple has issued a statement in which it ensures that “we have never done, and would never do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer updates. Our Our goal has always been to create products our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.”
It is not the first time that those from Cupertino have faced lawsuits for shortening the life of their devices. In 2020, Apple agreed to pay $113 million in the face of accusations from 33 US states that the company intentionally slowed down its devices to push users to buy new ones.
That same year, consumer advocacy groups in Spain, Italy, Belgium and Portugal sued the tech giant for allegedly tricking users into downloading updates that deliberately slowed down their iPhones, exactly what Gutmann claims. On that occasion they demanded 180 million.