Apple faces lawsuits after saying it slows down aging iPhones
Apple faces lawsuits after saying it slows down aging
iPhones
by Reuters Wednesday, 27 December 2017 01:38 GMT
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Apple Inc defrauded
iPhone users by slowing devices without warning to compensate for poor battery
performance, according to eight lawsuits filed in various federal courts in the
week since the company opened up about the year-old software change.
The tweak may have led iPhone owners to misguided
attempts to resolve issues over the last year, the lawsuits contend.
All the lawsuits - filed in U.S. District Courts in
California, New York and Illinois - seek class-action to represent potentially
millions of iPhone owners nationwide.
A similar case was lodged in an Israeli court on Monday,
the newspaper Haaretz reported.
Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment on the
filings.
The company acknowledged last week for the first time in
detail that operating system updates released since "last year" for
the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 included a feature "to
smooth out" power supply from batteries that are cold, old or low on
charge.
Phones without the adjustment would shut down abruptly
because of a precaution designed to prevent components from getting fried,
Apple said.
The disclosure followed a Dec. 18 analysis by Primate
Labs, which develops an iPhone performance measuring app, that identified blips
in processing speed and concluded that a software change had to be behind them.
One of the lawsuits, filed Thursday in San Francisco,
said that "the batteries' inability to handle the demand created by
processor speeds" without the software patch was a defect.
"Rather than curing the battery defect by providing
a free battery replacement for all affected iPhones, Apple sought to mask the
battery defect," according to the complaint.
The plaintiff in that case is represented by attorney
Jeffrey Fazio, who represented plaintiffs in a $53-million settlement with
Apple in 2013 over its handling of iPhone warranty claims.
The problem now seen is that users over the last year
could have blamed an aging computer processor for app crashes and sluggish
performance - and chose to buy a new phone - when the true cause may have been
a weak battery that could have been replaced for a fraction of the cost, some
of the lawsuits state.
"If it turns out that consumers would have replaced
their battery instead of buying new iPhones had they known the true nature of
Apple's upgrades, you might start to have a better case for some sort of
misrepresentation or fraud," said Rory Van Loo, a Boston University
professor specializing in consumer technology law.
But Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director for the Berkeley
Center for Law & Technology, said in an email that Apple may not have done
wrong.
"We still haven't come to consumer protection norms"
around aging products, Hoofnagle said. Pointing to a device with a security
flaw as an example, he said, "the ethical approach could include degrading
or even disabling functionality."
The lawsuits seek unspecified damages in addition to, in
some cases, reimbursement. A couple of the complaints seek court orders barring
Apple from throttling iPhone computer speeds or requiring notification in
future instances. (Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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