14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s deliberate slowdown of iPhones with degraded batteries keeps causing trouble to the American tech giant, as the company has now been requested to post a mea culpa message on its Italian website.
After being fined 10 million Euros by the Italian antitrust watchdog in late 2018, Apple has thus posted a note on the page to state that an update it released to certain iPhone models reduced their performance.
Apple publicly admitted in late 2017 that it deliberately slowed down a number of iPhone models with degraded batteries in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns.
While this approach is believed to have pushed some customers to purchase new iPhones, Apple later rolled out an iOS software update to reveal the battery health in order to let users know when battery replacements might be required.
Additionally, Apple launched a battery replacement program with a cost of just $29, down from $79.
Apple and Samsung both fined
After a thorough investigation of this approach, the Cupertino-based firm was fined 10 million Euros by Italy. South Korean rival Samsung was also fined 5 million Euros for similar performance adjustments of its devices.
The note posted on the Italian website states that Apple failed to inform customers about the degraded performance of the updated iPhone models.
“Apple Inc, Apple Distribution International, Apple Italy and Apple Retail Italy have led consumers in the possession of iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus to install the iOS 10 operating system and subsequent updates, without providing adequate information about the impact of that choice on the performance of the smartphones and without offering (if not to a limited extent or too late) any means of restoring the original functionality of the appliances in the event of a proven decrease in performance following the update (such as downgrading or battery replacement at a reasonable cost).”
To check the battery health of your iPhone you need to go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health > Maximum Capacity.