14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s iPhone slowdown nightmare doesn’t seem to come to an end, as the company is now facing another multi-state probe for the deliberate throttling that it applied to a series of iPhones before the whole thing was discovered in late 2017.
A report from Reuters reveals that the Arizona AG is now leading an investigation in an attempt to determine if the Cupertino-based tech giant violated deceptive trade practice laws by slowing down iPhones on purpose.
This is something that Apple has already responded to more than two years ago, with the company explaining that the throttling was required on devices with degraded batteries where unexpected shutdowns were possible.
Apple thus claims that it slowed down some iPhones on purpose in order to provide better battery life and prevent these devices from shutting down unexpectedly.
Up to $500 million settlement
After launching a battery replacement program with a discounted price and releasing updates to show the actual battery health on iPhones, Apple had to deal with several lawsuits on the matter. Earlier this month, for example, Apple agreed to pay out a maximum of $500 million to customers affected by this deliberate throttling, with a maximum of $25 per eligible device.
A website that details the settlement calls for iPhone owners to register for the payment if their devices were affected by the slowdown that Apple enabled with iOS updates.
“If you are or were a U.S. owner of an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, and/or SE device that ran iOS 10.2.1 or later before December 21, 2017, and/or a U.S. owner of an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus device that ran iOS 11.2 or later before December 21, 2017, you could be entitled to benefits under a class action settlement,” the site reads.
Apple has remained completely tight-lipped on this new multi-state probe.