Apple Battery-Gate Scandal – Millions to Receive Pay-out

Apple, the company who manufacturer the iPhone mobile device has faced serious claims in the US that they have intentionally altered the performance of older iPhones to slow phones down with an update and therefore potentially limit battery performance.

The company has faced accusations of deliberately hampering the performance of selected iPhones, but Apple has always denied the claims. Now most recently a case is now being brought forward in the UK.

The claim is fronted by Justin Gutmann, a former Head of Research at Citizens Advice and Consumer Focus in the United Kingdom. Gutmann claims that “Apple has breached competition law by abusing its dominant position in the relevant iPhone and iOS markets, by selling iPhones with defective batteries that were unable to deliver peak power and pushing automatic iOS updates to iPhones which incorporated a power management tool which slowed down the iPhones and caused performance issues”.

He is applying to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent all U.K. owners of the affected iPhones, which include the iPhone 6, 7, 8 and X and their various models. With this case set to move forward at speed, Gutmann is potentially seeking £768 million leaving Apple facing a large compensation pay out. Up to 25 million British people who owned an iPhone model in 2017 could be able to claim damages if this lawsuit is successful.

Apple has admitted slowing down old iPhone devices with low-capacity batteries, saying it is a way of protecting the devices’ components. Apple has now admitted that the slowing of the phone’s Central Processing Unit (CPU) does take place, although not to force consumers to upgrade their devices. The act of slowing down a computer processor is called “downlocking” or “underclocking”.

Apple Statement:

Apple said: “Last year, we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions.” “We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.” “Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers.”