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Apple slapped with €60m lawsuit from Italian consumer rights org for slowing down CPUs in old iPhones

(2021/01/26)


Apple may have to cough up €60m ($73m, £53m) after Altroconsumo, an Italian consumers rights group, filed a class-action lawsuit railing against Cupertino's practice of throttling the performance of its older smartphones.

Altroconsumo, backed by parent consumer group Euroconsumers, [1]claims Apple's iOS deliberately slowed down apps running on iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S and 6S Plus models to drive people into buying newer and better gear. The rights warriors say one million of these handhelds were sold in Italy.

[2]

Apple appears to be charging Brits £309 to replace AirPods Max batteries, while Americans need only stump up $79 [3]READ MORE

"Simply put, Apple deliberately tweaked their software update to slow down the battery in order to cover a malfunction," Will Hummel, a spokesperson from Euroconsumers told The Register . "Planned obsolescence is a deliberate unfair practice to consumers that causes frustration and financial harm."

[4]

Slowing down the battery isn't quite what happened. In 2017, Apple released iOS 11.2 and 10.2.1 that limited the speed, and ergo power draw, of its CPU cores to, [5]according to the manufacturer , prevent iPhone 6, 6S, and SE units from rapidly draining their tired batteries too quickly and shutting off unexpectedly. Apple had previously offered a battery replacement program for iPhone 6 units.

On Monday, in response to this latest lawsuit, Apple denied it deliberately engineered its software to push folks to ditch their go-slow mobes and upgrade to newer, faster models. In a statement to El Reg , a spokesperson said:

We have never – and would never – do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.

Altroconsumo is the third member of Euroconsumers to sue Apple; it joins other consumer rights groups Test-Achats in Belgium, and Spain's OCU, which filed similar lawsuits in December demanding at least €60 for each person affected in either countries. The iGiant hasn’t yet responded to either complaint. It was just recently fined in Italy €10m for "aggressive and misleading" marketing of the iPhone's water-resistance capabilities.

Apple also has problems closer to home over the issue. More than 30 states in the US sued Apple over the battery issue, and the iGiant agreed to cough up [6]$113m in a settlement in November. Hummel said that deal was proof Apple deceived its customers. Apple, however, insisted reaching said agreement in the US was not an admission of wrongdoing.

[7]

“That settlement clearly demonstrates that Apple resorted to planned obsolescence as a deliberate attempt to increase renewal of phone, hide issues and deceive consumers,” Hummel told us. ®

Get our [8]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.altroconsumo.it/organizzazione/media-e-press/comunicati/2021/class-action-apple-per-obsolescenza-programmata

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_personal_tech/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YA-2Rtsq5d3E0FRKyHuj4gAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/09/airpods_max_battery_replacement/

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_personal_tech/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YA-2Rtsq5d3E0FRKyHuj4gAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/20/apple_iphone_slowdown/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/18/apple_iphone_battery/

[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_personal_tech/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YA-2Rtsq5d3E0FRKyHuj4gAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/

Dear Apple

Anonymous Coward

Next time, just warn them that this will cause old iPhone models to explode and make sure its repeated several times in the release notes, and the clickthrough terms of service

Anonymous Coward

When you least expect it, Apple suddently reply back to TheReg

Fruit and Nutcase

A minor oversight. Normal service will be resumed shortly

When does Apple buy Italy?

Totally not a Cylon

Normal practice when some small company sues a larger one is for the larger to buy the smaller.

So, when is Apple buying Italy?

Seriously it's going to happen at some point......

Re: When does Apple buy Italy?

LDS

Italian debt and spending can eclipse Apple's revenues and cash reserves too...

Something fishy...

Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

"Apple, however, insisted reaching said agreement in the US was not an admission of wrongdoing."

So they just gave the US $113m for philanthropic reasons then right?

"philanthropic reasons"

Anonymous Coward

No - they paid up because it was less than the years of court action would have cost otherwise.

Enough all ready...

Anonymous Coward

Whilst what they did was very badly explained when it was introduced, the "throttling" actually allowed people to continue to use their phones for longer than they could have otherwise (i.e., when they battery was so badly worn that heavy use of the phone would cause it it reboot). The change was also applied to _all_ iPhones, not just the older ones.

The feature helped me recently when the battery in my iPhone 7 failed when all the stores were closed due to Covid lockdowns - I was able to continue using my phone without any major performance hits for the six weeks I had to wait before I could get the battery changed*.

I just wish someone could get a court to understand this and balance it against the "Apple did this to force people to buy a new phone" claims.

Awaiting down votes from the Apple haters...

* Which is another story - they broke my phone, replacing it there and then with a new one (same model / spec).

Re: Enough all ready...

Headley_Grange

".... introduced, the "throttling" actually allowed people to continue to use their phones for longer than they could have otherwise" .... because Apple had designed software updates which took no account of older phones' capabilities. FTFY

I'm well ensconced in the Apple garden and have been for years, so not a hater by any means, but seeing features forced on me that knacker my phone as Apple doing me a favour is taking the piss.

phogan99

I guess they'd rather charge their battery more often and accelerate the decline. The solution is just to replace the battery. Also, I don't think you can even update iOS on an iPhone 6S anymore. Seem odd to point out the battery as planned obsolescence when you can't even update it and apps will eventually end support.

Companies aren't going support products forever and even if they tried the devices naturally degrade from use. Caps wear out, thermal cycling takes it's toll etc.

Chris G

"Companies are'nt goint support products for ever"

I am currently waiting for a full gasket and repair kit to arrive in the post, for my 1977 Briggs & Stratton engine on a generator, incidentally, the genny is British made and I can still buy parts for that too.

Companies like Apple are primarily sales organisations driven to maximise profit by selling new units an charging as much as possible for both the items and their maintenance.

Lifetime is pre-planned as a part of the basic business model even if the quality in Apple's case is reasonably high it is still a marketing operation driven by the company and not the customer.

Companies like Briggs became ubiquitous by selling a well engineered product as well as excellent service, a pity that few manufacturers use their business model anymore.

Anonymous Coward

Yes, and spares are available for iPhones long after they no longer receive software updates.

Can you "upgrade" the engine on your generator to make it more fuel efficient, or does that require a new model?

Security

Anonymous Coward

We have never – and would never – do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product

Apart from dropping security updates for older models, thus rendering them dangerously unusable in the modern world.

Re: Security

gryphon

You can criticise Apple for many things (and we all do) but not for the length of time they support older phones.

I just upgraded to a 12 Pro Max but had my previous 6+ for 6 years, it got an update for something or other a couple of weeks ago despite being on iOS 12.

My daughters SE classic is working quite happily on iOS 14 and I think that model is also around 6 years old although she's only had it a couple of years.

Only place you get near that in Android world is pretty much with Android One which gives 2 O/S updates and 3 years security. Although I think I read in another article that Samsung is now starting to promise long-term-support for their current models.

Re: Security

Anonymous Coward

Quite. Whilst it would be nice to get updates for a longer period (I don't think I'll be needing to replace my 7 for performance reasons for a few years yet), it does get to the point that the engineering costs in maintaining multiple OS branches becomes unacceptable. Sure, Apple could use more of their profits, but...

iPhones are always mentioned, but this must apply to iPad Mini, iPads too?

Anonymous Coward

Whenever these articles are published it never make any reference to iPad Mini, iPad 2/iPad 3/iPad4 etc.

Just from the way my existing older iPad Mini, older iPads now respond, it's pretty clear the devices have been throttled at some point by an Apple iOS software update.

They've become unusable, with very obvious delays to open Safari, or the browser just resets attempting to open a page.

It's all a very different (slow and unusable) experience to when the devices were new, and that's with every conceivable graphical enhancement feature turned off, to speed them up.

i.e. Was this done specifically to iPhones running iOS, or all iOS devices including iPads (which seems likely), which means it's a much bigger kettle of fish Apple are denying they slowed.

Re: iPhones are always mentioned, but this must apply to iPad Mini, iPads too?

Anonymous Coward

No, they have not been "throttled" - they simply have CPU (and other constraints) that mean they are not able to run the latest OS at the same speed as a modern machine.

The performance reduction feature that was added to the iPhone to stop it crashing under heavy workloads* when the battery needed replacing was not added to the iPad.

* Due to the battery voltage dropping too low.

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best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a
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