In defense to these accusations, in December 2017, Apple confirmed that the company does slow down some models with time but it was done keeping in mind the battery performance of these phones which gets reduced over time. The company also offered to replace the batteries of such phones for $79 which was later reduced to a more affordable price of $29 for its customers in January 2018.

The US District Court came up with a decision and stated that Apple would have to pay $25 to each iPhone user who has the affected model. All the iPhone users in the United States, owning the iPhone 6, 6 plus, 6S, 6S plus, 7, 7 plus or SE are entitled to a payment of $25, if they bought any of these devices before 21st December 2017. The total amount to be paid by this global tech company lies in the range of $310 million and $500 million. The approval of this settlement is still pending and the judge will look into this subject on 3rd April.

Last month, France’s consumer watchdog, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention, also charged Apple with a heavy fine of €25 million for the same issue. They said that the iPhone users were not informed earlier that if they installed the iOs update, 10.2.1 and 11.2, it would slow down their devices. It was considered a crime of ‘deceptive commercial practice by omission’ by DGCCRF. To this Apple admitted that they slowed down its older devices but, they also claimed that they did so to extend the life of such phones.

When this news initially came to light in 2017, tech blog geekbench.com did its own research in the whole matter. Their blog read: “First, it appears that the problem is widespread, and will only get worse as phones and their batteries continue to age. Second, the problem is due, in part, to a change in iOs. The difference between 10.2.0 and 10.2.1. is too abrupt to be just a function of battery function. I believe that Apple introduced the change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point. Why did Apple do this?”

iPhone users all around the world were annoyed by this strategic tactic adopted by Apple. They felt that the company just wanted to take more money from their loyal customers. One of the annoyed iPhone users Tweeted, “Been saying this since the original iPhone, as soon as that started to inexplicably slow down, I switched to android. Glad I did, Apple drain our money. They come over here, make huge profits and don’t pay fair share of tax, then it turns out they were screwing peeps. Nah.”

With such hefty fines and complaints from its customers, Apple hopefully learnt the lesson.

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