Apple Reaches Settlement To Pay $15 To Some iPhone 4S Owners Over Throttling (macrumors.com) 34
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple has agreed to settle a long-lasting six-year class-action lawsuit that accused it of knowingly slowing down iPhone 4S devices following the iOS 9 update in 2015, agreeing to pay some iPhone 4S owners who had experienced poor performance $15 each for their claims. The class-action lawsuit was initially filed in December 2015 by plaintiffs representing a group of iPhone 4S customers from New York and New Jersey. The lawsuit accused Apple of falsely marketing the iOS 9 update as providing enchanted performance on devices it supports, including the iPhone 4S.
Under the settlement, Apple allocated $20 million to compensate iPhone 4S owners in New York and New Jersey who experienced poor performance after updating to iOS 9. Customers who believe they are entitled to the $15 must "submit a declaration under the penalty of perjury that, to the best of their knowledge, they downloaded iOS 9, or any version thereof, onto their iPhone 4S... their iPhone 4S experienced a significant decline in performance as a result, are entitled to a payment of $15 per applicable device." A website will be created where customers who believe they are entitled to the settlement will be able to submit a form, providing their name, email, iPhone 4S serial number (if possible), and mailing address. See the full motion here.
Under the settlement, Apple allocated $20 million to compensate iPhone 4S owners in New York and New Jersey who experienced poor performance after updating to iOS 9. Customers who believe they are entitled to the $15 must "submit a declaration under the penalty of perjury that, to the best of their knowledge, they downloaded iOS 9, or any version thereof, onto their iPhone 4S... their iPhone 4S experienced a significant decline in performance as a result, are entitled to a payment of $15 per applicable device." A website will be created where customers who believe they are entitled to the settlement will be able to submit a form, providing their name, email, iPhone 4S serial number (if possible), and mailing address. See the full motion here.
Do all cases move this slow? (Score:2)
Re:Do all cases move this slow? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. It takes a little time to calculate just how many crumbs Greed will leave on the table after justifying another round of cake for themselves.
$15 doesn't even cover the fucking tax on the forced replacement. It's a slap in the face for everyone involved except lawyers, who are the ones that designed this system.
Re:Do all cases move this slow? (Score:4, Insightful)
You got it backwards. Apple slowed down phones with degraded batteries so that the phone kept working instead of crashing, allowing people to keep using their old phones instead of replacing them. Would you prefer that they did what Android phones (or iPhones before iOS 9) do, which is to crash and reboot whenever apps try to draw more power than the battery can supply? The only mistake Apple made was to not make it more visible to users that Apple was keeping their phone working longer, to compensate for the degraded battery. They fixed that in later iOS releases, of course - now battery health is visible, there are user alerts, etc.
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Apple slowed down phones with degraded batteries so that the phone kept working instead of crashing
That's not how any of this works. They slowed down phones with batteries which degraded below acceptable ability to retain charge faster than the industry average because Apple is always chasing the last fraction of a millimeter of thickness, in order to artificially extend the battery life so they could pretend that it hadn't degraded.
If Apple they had included as much "over" capacity in their batteries as other manufacturers do in products sold at similar price points (in order to accommodate expected bat
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That's not how any of this works. They slowed down phones with batteries which degraded below acceptable ability to retain charge faster than the industry average because Apple is always chasing the last fraction of a millimeter of thickness, in order to artificially extend the battery life so they could pretend that it hadn't degraded.
If Apple they had included as much "over" capacity in their batteries as other manufacturers do in products sold at similar price points (in order to accommodate expected battery degradation) then they would never have been motivated to do this in the first place. If they had given users the option to either have a shorter runtime or decreased processor speed, then this would never have gone to court. But by taking the decision out of customers' hands, which is the thing that every iFanboy claims is what Apple customers want, they essentially were forcing a percentage of their users to purchase a newer device if they wanted the performance they paid for.
It had absolutely nothing to do with charge capacity. It was about how much power the battery could supply at a given moment. If the battery couldn't handle the power draw at a particular moment in time, the phone would instantly shut off.
You could trigger the problem by taking a brand new phone and trying to use every feature at once. Like record a video while streaming music with driving directions running type scenarios. It was pretty hard to run into this issue on a new phone, but it got easier as the b
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It had absolutely nothing to do with charge capacity. It was about how much power the battery could supply at a given moment.
Both things are caused by the same thing, islanding of lithium in the electrolyte. We recently discussed here how this can be reversed in test conditions (for a certain kind of li-ion cell, anyway) by charging slowly and then fast-discharging to 90% SoC. Both the ability to store charge and the ability to rapidly discharge are related to having a conductive path through the lithium in the electrolyte.
The fact that it was about current capacity is the reason why I talked about batteries with more cells. Whet
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You got it backwards. Apple slowed down phones with degraded batteries so that the phone kept working instead of crashing, allowing people to keep using their old phones instead of replacing them. Would you prefer that they did what Android phones (or iPhones before iOS 9) do, which is to crash and reboot whenever apps try to draw more power than the battery can supply? The only mistake Apple made was to not make it more visible to users that Apple was keeping their phone working longer, to compensate for the degraded battery. They fixed that in later iOS releases, of course - now battery health is visible, there are user alerts, etc.
Deception is deception. Regardless of intent, they did not disclose to maximize profits. They knew what the natural reaction would be when an iConsumer detects their aging phone, slowing down a bit too much for their liking. They spend money on Apple hardware.
And that "mistake", didn't even cost them in the end. Apple still profited from this action, so who's really being honest here; a system pretending to provide justice, or a company pretending to give a shit about consumers and not profits?
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Deception is deception. Regardless of intent, they did not disclose to maximize profits. They knew what the natural reaction would be when an iConsumer detects their aging phone, slowing down a bit too much for their liking. They spend money on Apple hardware.
That doesn't make a lick of sense. A phone crashing because you opened Google Earth with 30% battery left on a cold day is the kind of thing that would trigger the slowdown mode on the next boot. Your phone unexpectedly shutting down when you still had some charge left is a stronger, and more annoying, reason to replace an old phone. Slow or random crashes doesn't change the outcome - replace phone. Your theory is just stupid.
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If my theory was stupid, then the damages probably wouldn't have exceeded the profits, which they most certainly did.
These are Apple customers. In other words, they don't tolerate anything less than "premium" performance and fashion, all the time. Otherwise, they'd spend half as much on any Android.
And if my phone is repeatedly crashing, and then causing a slowdown, that's not an answer or a solution. I'm either wiping it or replacing it. You can stop bullshitting yourself now.
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Pretty much. Class action suits are meant to punish the company, not compensate the victim. If you want a payout you have to file your own suit.
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Pretty much. Class action suits are meant to punish the company...
Yeah, let me know when that actually works. Even tobacco companies never went out of business, and you can't get much more harmful than that.
The vehicle of class-action, exists to feed Greed in the legal system. It doesn't offer deterrence or justice because mega-corps who are often found guilty, already know their egregious actions will still be financially worth it, lawsuit or not.
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"Punish". Not "Destroy". Punishing a company into non-existence serves neither the plaintiffs or the public at large.
Re:Do all cases move this slow? (Score:4, Insightful)
Punish or destroy? It doesn't even deter anymore.
And pushing a company into non-existence, is perhaps justified when Greed dares to push human lives into non-existence, for profit.
Wasn't the case here, but sure as hell has been for plenty like it.
Re:Do all cases move this slow? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Punish". Not "Destroy"
If corporations are to be treated as people under the law, then the death penalty should always be a possibility for them.
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Sure. But just as the death penalty for people should be (ideally) reserved for the extreme, so it should be for corporations.
In fact, it does exist (sort of). See "Standard Oil".
Should Apple be destroyed for something that eventually was levied at $15 per claimant? Probably not.
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Class action suits are meant to make money for the legal profession. Nothing more, nothing less.
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That's because the case was being processed in a iPhone 4S updated with iOS 9.
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And only for 2 out of 50 states (Score:2)
Pretty bold claim... (Score:2)
sounds magical...
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Always knew Apple were hand wavy witches :D
"These are not the updates you're looking for."
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Who the hell sells enchantments outside of Disney or a witch cult? Is that a software update or a device possession you're selling? Seriously. I can't believe anyone who's reached double-digit age would read those words and validate them in any way.
Consumers are dumb, but an iConsumer seems to be another species of gullible.
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Slowing down instead of crashing and rebooting _is_ an enhancement. Remember, they only slowed down apps on phones with degraded batteries, so that the CPU didn't try to draw more power than the battery could provide. Before iOS 9, and on Android phones, a power-hungry app will crash and reboot the phone, which is worse than running a little slowly. The only mistake Apple made was to not be explicit to users that this was going on, which they addressed in a following release.
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Ahh, but is it an enchantment?
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Question (Score:2)
Wait almost a decade for $15?!? (Score:2)
It seems like a waste of time to me. The lawyers in the case made the money, not the plaintiffs.
6+? (Score:2)
What happened to the ones for iPhone 6 Plus and others? Others and I still got nothing!