Apple Will Soon Send Payments In $500 Million 'Batterygate' iPhone Throttling Lawsuit (macrumors.com) 23
The judge overseeing Apple's "batterygate" iPhone throttling lawsuit has cleared the way for payments to be sent out. MacRumors reports: Apple in 2020 agreed to pay $500 million to settle the "batterygate" lawsuit, which accused the company of secretly throttling older iPhone models. The class action lawsuit was open to U.S. customers who had an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, or 7 Plus running iOS 10.2.1 or iOS 11.2 prior to December 21, 2017. [...] Apple ultimately apologized for its lack of communication and dropped the price of battery replacements to $29 through the end of 2018. iPhone owners eligible for a payout would have needed to submit a claim back in 2020, and submissions were open through October 6, 2020. Those who submitted a claim back then will be eligible for a payment, which will be around $65 per claimant.
Guess it's better than nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
$65 is better than nothing, and certainly better than what I've seen in other cases, where payouts were something like $7.5 or $11.
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I'm holding out for GatewayGate or GateGateGate.
Re:Guess it's better than nothing (Score:5, Funny)
I’m waiting for Mr Musk to make a major mistake so we can have Elongate!
Re: Guess it's better than nothing (Score:2)
Well played, sir.
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Again in the future with 14s? (Score:2)
https://apple.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org] :O
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I think I see your point. It makes me wonder if the battery degradation of the iPhone 14s is really just a symptom of software changes. Maybe it's not strictly a hardware issue causing such a drastic change in capacity forecasts.
Is it accidentally spilling the beans on a recently introduced but constant power demand?
Easy Example: There are new software "enhancements" that require a bit more power now after the "bug fix".
( "bug fix" = telemetry and user tracking was too restrained, not fully util
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Law is sometimes surprising (Score:2)
Re: Law is sometimes surprising (Score:3)
It was from a technical perspective sensible. Where they went wrong was in pushing this out without first explaining the purpose of it. Also I don't think it was optional.
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They explained it plenty on their support pages and in the release notes if you were paying attention. The battery problems were bad enough for the people impacted that they released the first version of the fix before they had any UI to indicate what was happening. Then the initial UI didn't explain what was happening well enough - it made sense if you had been following the issue, but didn't explain the issue for people you weren't.
It's not optional because it only triggers if your phone is about to powe
Re: Law is sometimes surprising (Score:2)
You can disable it, although it will be re-enabled in the event of an unexpected shut down.
The cooling is a good analogy, certainly share throttling becomes more evident as a computer becomes increasingly clogged with fluff, forcing fans/blowers to work harder due to reduced airflow.
That is so dumb! (Score:2)
The throttling was to make the battery last longer after it became weak with use. I don't get why anyone would think that was a bad thing. Everyone knows that Lithium-Cobalt batteries are shit, they go on fire just by breathing wrongly.
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The throttling was to make the battery last longer after it became weak with use. I don't get why anyone would think that was a bad thing.
What's a bad thing is that Apple didn't put a battery with enough current capacity in their phone to function with expected battery degradation. And apparently they've done it again [slashdot.org], but people keep coming out of the woodwork to defend them.
Everyone knows that Lithium-Cobalt batteries are shit, they go on fire just by breathing wrongly.
The vast majority of NMC batteries never burst into flames. Virtually all phones use them because they offer the most energy density. Despite this, I would support a total ban on NMC batteries. LFPs have almost as much capacity, they are dramatically less likely to combu
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The throttling was to make the battery last longer after it became weak with use.
That is not correct.
The battery was throttled after a time when statistical modeling showed many such batteries might become weak with use, leading to increased warranty costs for Apple.
Many people with fine batteries got throttled - that's the crux of the issue.
I can sit here and merely cat this laptop's current health from /sys - iOS had access to that information for their devices too. A later update incorporated the ethica
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The throttling was to make the battery last longer after it became weak with use.
That is not correct.
The battery was throttled after a time when statistical modeling showed many such batteries might become weak with use, leading to increased warranty costs for Apple.
Many people with fine batteries got throttled - that's the crux of the issue.
I can sit here and merely cat this laptop's current health from /sys - iOS had access to that information for their devices too. A later update incorporated the ethical approach.
In the meantime, many of the people with throttled phones bought new phones because theirs had become too slow. I heard one guy who had a dev device that was always on line power that got throttled and his battery was at 98% health.
Many of those replacement phone purchases were ten-ish years ago and the profit from that sale plus interest greatly exceeds the $65 fixed compensation (neither restitution nor penalty).
Apple got away with harming their users to improve their profits and share price.
Liar.
And FUCKING Liar.
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The battery was throttled after a time when statistical modeling showed many such batteries might become weak with use, leading to increased warranty costs for Apple.
The CPU was throttled if the current power draw as greater than the battery could supply at the moment. The root issue prompting the fix was brand new phones spontaneously shutting off when used outdoors in winter weather. Old batteries were a secondary concern.
And throttling a battery doesn't even make sense - that would just make any problems worse.
Many people with fine batteries got throttled - that's the crux of the issue.
I can sit here and merely cat this laptop's current health from /sys - iOS had access to that information for their devices too. A later update incorporated the ethical approach.
In the meantime, many of the people with throttled phones bought new phones because theirs had become too slow.
The problem the court case is based on is that the initial fix didn't have any UI to indicate what was happening. The spontaneous shutdowns were a big problem
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It would be like an electric car limiting its acceleration and top speed in order to maintain its advertised range.
As a battery ages, something has to give.
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It would be like an electric car limiting its acceleration and top speed in order to maintain its advertised range.
As a battery ages, something has to give.
Finally, someone who understands batteries!
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The throttling was to make the battery last longer after it became weak with use. I don't get why anyone would think that was a bad thing. Everyone knows that Lithium-Cobalt batteries are shit, they go on fire just by breathing wrongly.
It wasn't to make the battery last longer. It throttled if the battery couldn't provide enough power to meet demands at the moment. Without the throttling, your phone would spontaneously shut off.