Apple might have to pay in “batterygate” class action lawsuit

[cmcejas]

Quotes

Quote

 The company agreed to the settlement in 2020, and in August last year, one of the law firms representing customers in the lawsuit said a judge had cleared the last obstacle — a legal appeal — holding up the payouts, and that money would be sent soon. The phones affected were the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and the original iPhone SE. At the time, the firm said that payments would be around $65, so if you filed an approved claim by October 6th, 2020, you may have a little more money than you expected coming your way soon.

 

My thoughts

It’s good that Apple has been held accountable hopefully this trend continues. Concerning the payouts, I wonder how much paperwork will be necessary to receive the cash. Will a receipt of having bought the phone be needed or will Apple be asked to provide their selling data. Realistically, I think it’ll be a long form and process to actually receive the cash. 

 

Sources

 https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/6/24028162/apple-batterygate-payments-issued-class-action-lawsuit

[8tg]

why is everything a gate

its so cringe, anyone who names something a _____gate should be ashamed of themselves for being so unoriginal

 

Besides the point. But yeah, apple needs to be reminded every now and then of basic consumer rights and what the consumer should expect. This happened with the iphone 4s except they still never just allowed backwards downgrading of the OS, so still to this day most iphone 4s's are unusable with ios 9.3, and the activation services for ios 6 dont work with modern sims. Wont be the first time theyve been sued for stuff like this, wont be the last.

 

inb4 apple gets sued again for their stupid usb C ac adapters which dont like to work with anything that isnt an apple product

[cmcejas]

8 minutes ago, 8tg said:

why is everything a gate

its so cringe, anyone who names something a _____gate should be ashamed of themselves for being so unoriginal

 

Besides the point. But yeah, apple needs to be reminded every now and then of basic consumer rights and what the consumer should expect. This happened with the iphone 4s except they still never just allowed backwards downgrading of the OS, so still to this day most iphone 4s's are unusable with ios 9.3, and the activation services for ios 6 dont work with modern sims. Wont be the first time theyve been sued for stuff like this, wont be the last.

 

inb4 apple gets sued again for their stupid usb C ac adapters which dont like to work with anything that isnt an apple product

Scandals have the “gate” suffix because of the watergate hotel scandal but I think it is used now just to signify something is a scandal not necessarily for originality. 
 

About hoping Apple gets sued due to usb-c adapters I think it may happen in the EU but I don’t see it being a thing in the US court system. 

[PocketNerd]

This was actually one of those "scandals" I never quite understood.

 

Should Apple have better communicated what was going on at the time? Yes. Was it some sort of planned obsolescence conspiracy? No, not really. Smartphone batteries wear down over time, this is an undeniable fact, they are going to have to be replaced eventually.

[suicidalfranco]

so much for those people who still claim that apple was never in the wrong and only haters had their phone shutting down

[GhostRoadieBL]

$65 isn't enough to replace the battery, this is such a slap on the wrist for a company like Apple. Not even a speeding ticket when it's only for approved claims if you heard about this and signed up for a claim.

 

Better punishment would be having apple replace the device with a current model. Hit them where it hurts in their current product stack so the practice actually has a consequence.

Prove to me the iphone didn't have more than $65 margin so this is something meaningful.

[starsmine]

Battery gate still has to be one of the stupidest poorly reported scandal I have ever seen.

OH NO the phone doesn't crash when the battery is 2 years old. OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo how dare apple not give me my god given right of a phone that crashes instead of throttles. 

This is NOT planned obsolences, its keeping the phone running for longer. Apples crime is not fully communicating what is happening, not throttling. 

 

 

2 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

so much for those people who still claim that apple was never in the wrong and only haters had their phone shutting down

A lawsuit existing doesn't mean the lawsuit holds water. 

The batteries are consumables and are replaceable, and always have been with these models. 

[suicidalfranco]

9 hours ago, starsmine said:

Battery gate still has to be one of the stupidest poorly reported scandal I have ever seen.

OH NO the phone doesn't crash when the battery is 2 years old. OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo how dare apple not give me my god given right of a phone that crashes instead of throttles. 

This is NOT planned obsolences, its keeping the phone running for longer. Apples crime is not fully communicating what is happening, not throttling. 

 

 

A lawsuit existing doesn't mean the lawsuit holds water. 

The batteries are consumables and are replaceable, and always have been with these models. 

 

[starsmine]

11 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

 

Yes I'm serious. 
The throttling kept your phone from crashing aka, actually being obsolescent. 

the batteries on the 6, 6s, SE and 7 are trivial to swap. 30 dollar part, 30 dollars labor/overhead. or just do it yourself for 30 dollars. 

I am so sick and tired of this being used as an example of planned obsolescence or apple trying to fuck people over. Its not. There are thousands of other things to be mad at apple over instead of making one up. 

[HenrySalayne]

5 minutes ago, starsmine said:

The throttling kept your phone from crashing aka, actually being obsolecent. 

So Apple displayed a message explaining the situation on affected devices and let users choose if they want degraded performance or risk crashes? And did they mention a battery replacement would reset the trottling?

Or did they just precautionary and intransparently slowed down devices without notifying anyone hoping costumers would buy a new device?

 

----------------------------------------

Yes, that's what I thought...

 

[starsmine]

4 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

So Apple displayed a message explaining the situation on affected devices and let users choose if they want degraded performance or risk crashes? And did they mention a battery replacement would reset the trottling?

Or did they just precautionary and intransparently slowed down devices without notifying anyone hoping costumers would buy a new device?

 

----------------------------------------

Yes, that's what I thought...

 

 

14 hours ago, starsmine said:

This is NOT planned obsolences, its keeping the phone running for longer. Apples crime is not fully communicating what is happening, not throttling. 

 

[Blademaster91]

I find it interesting that people are still defending apple on this, even though they were proven wrong and lost the lawsuit over it.

It doesn't matter if the phone throttled or shut down because there was no transparency of phones being throttled down due to the batteries being defective.

[LAwLz]

Judging by the comments in this thread, I am not sure people understand what this lawsuit was or what happened.

 

 

My personal opinion is this:

I think Apple did the right thing with the throttling, and I don't agree at all that it was some kind of planned obsolescence. If anything, it was the opposite since they prioritized users being able to keep using their devices rather than their devices becoming unreliable. The people who think this was planned obsolescence don't understand the issue or are willfully ignorant to satisfy some witch-hunt craving.

 

What Apple did wrong however was their utter lack of transparency and information to users. I guess you could see this as them having to pay for their lack of transparency, and I am all for that. Not sure if I agree that Apple should pay 92 dollars per device, but it's not like Apple is short on cash so... meh...

[Issac Zachary]

My thoughts are:

if you don't like Apple, THEN buy something else! Sheesh!

 

I've never owned an iPhone, althought I've thought about maybe buying one some day. But who knows. I'm now getting 4 days of battery life on my Google Pixel 4a thanks to the Linus Tech Tips community!

 

I think the problem is that Apple has done some sketchy things elsewhere. Why do batteries on new phones need to be paired by Apple??? The antirepairability of Apple (or at least not being repairable the way I would like) bothers me. As a result, more people are quick to point to anything that Apple does as part of a conspiracy. I'm not so sure that everything Apple does is a conspirace, batteries do die after several years.

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

so much for those people who still claim that apple was never in the wrong and only haters had their phone shutting down

That's a strawman argument and you know it. Nobody argued that "only haters had their phone shutting down".

Also, the throttling was to prevent the phones from shutting down. If your phone shut down then you were not affected by this. Apple got in trouble for preventing the phones from shutting down, but disabling the higher power states of the SoC.

 

 

13 hours ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

$65 isn't enough to replace the battery, this is such a slap on the wrist for a company like Apple. Not even a speeding ticket when it's only for approved claims if you heard about this and signed up for a claim.

 

Better punishment would be having apple replace the device with a current model. Hit them where it hurts in their current product stack so the practice actually has a consequence.

Prove to me the iphone didn't have more than $65 margin so this is something meaningful.

Dial back on the blood lust.

65 dollars was more than enough for a battery replacement because as part of this Apple also lowered the replacement charge to 30 dollars. Also, the payback is 92 dollars per device. I recommend reading the full story next time and not just the headline and synopsis. A lot of important details often get missed if you don't read everything.

 

Secondly, I am pretty sure this did hurt them a lot and that they have learned their lesson. Justice isn't about "they inflicted damage on me so now I will get revenge and inflict damage on them". 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

I find it interesting that people are still defending apple on this, even though they were proven wrong and lost the lawsuit over it.

Just because they lost a lawsuit does not mean they were actually in the wrong or that peoples' beliefs were justified and correct.

In this case, I think they were guilty of some things, but I am not sure I agree that the punishment fits the crime, and I think people are reading the lawsuit to jump to incorrect conclusions.

 

AMD lost a lawsuit because someone argued (and won in court) that their bulldozer CPUs didn't have for example 8 cores. I doubt anyone involved in that case actually knows what for example an FMAC unit is, yet they get to decide what a "core" is. If someone also used that lawsuit to argue "zen 4c cores aren't real cores" then I would have some issues with that as well.

My points are that just because someone lost a lawsuit does not mean they were actually guilty, nor does it automatically mean the punishment was correct or that all of peoples' beliefs automatically become correct. It is possible to read a verdict incorrectly. It happens quite often, especially when people actively look for reasons to justify their beliefs about some company or person.

 

 

38 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

if you don't like Apple, THEN buy something else! Sheesh!

That is an awful argument.

1) What Apple does is extremely important even to me as a non-customer because they have enough power to influence entire markets beyond their own. What Apple does, others will probably do too. As a result, they have a tremendous responsibility to do the right thing. With great power comes great responsibility.

 

2) Just because I am not personally affected doesn't mean I shouldn't care. I never owned an iOS device during the period when this was an issue, but others did and I am glad that they get some compensation for some eventual harm they suffered.

These types of rulings are also meant to discourage future harmful actions. Just because I am not a customer today doesn't mean I will never become one, and if Apple isn't held responsible for what they do today then they might do things that would be harmful to me in the future. 

 

3) Apple has been found guilty in a court of law. This isn't some "I don't like the color on the iPhone" type of deal. 

Your response is a thought-terminating cliche that is very harmful because it encourages not holding potential criminals responsible for their actions.

I think that some people make it their hobby to hate certain brands, especially Apple, and they should probably find themselves a new hobby, but this is not the time and place to bring that up. I don't think that is what is happening in this thread either. 

 

 

Think of it as raising a kid. Apple was just caught hitting someone, and now their parents have said "you need to apologize, and you also have to give them your allowance".

I think the people who are basically saying "we should get an adult to hit the kid back several times so he learns the meaning of pain" and the people going "I knew it. His parents saying he hit that other kid totally confirms and justifies me spreading rumors about him" are going overboard. But I don't think saying "If you don't want to get hit then just stay away from him. The parents did a bad job because they told him what he did was wrong" is the correct thing either.

There are positions between these two extremes and I think the best outcome is somewhere in the middle. I am not sure if I agree that this outcome is exactly on the right spot of the spectrum, but it seems close enough in my opinion that I don't mind it.

[Dracarris]

On 1/7/2024 at 7:37 AM, PocketNerd said:

This was actually one of those "scandals" I never quite understood.

 

Should Apple have better communicated what was going on at the time? Yes. Was it some sort of planned obsolescence conspiracy? No, not really. Smartphone batteries wear down over time, this is an undeniable fact, they are going to have to be replaced eventually.

They really should've just let these goddamn phones die and save us all this whining and bitching and conspiracy nonsense from folks that carry a phone around that basically has to be tethered at all times to either a power bank or wall outlet.

 

Then there was also this horribly inaccurate Veritasium video about planned obsolescence and "why we can't have nice things" which further spread the misrepresentation of this thing.

18 hours ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

$65 isn't enough to replace the battery

That's pretty much exactly the amount that Apple charged for a battery replacement back then.

[freeagent]

I can tell a lot of you forget what it was like to use a shitty droid phone at the time that would crash as soon as you put a load on its anemic battery.

 

I think I would rather have reduced performance than a piece of shit that cant stay running without a cord plugged into it.

[Obioban]

Really one of the stupidest things Apple has been sued for. Oh no, how dare they make older devices with worn out batteries continue to function. Burn them!

[Issac Zachary]

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Judging by the comments in this thread, I am not sure people understand what this lawsuit was or what happened.

I see I probably should have read the link before posting.

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Your response is a thought-terminating cliche that is very harmful because it encourages not holding potential criminals responsible for their actions.

OK! Ok! Ok!

 

But this pain-in-the-rear problem has been a teeter-totter (in my head at least) since the beggining.

1. Apple's phones slow down after a certain update, so don't update!
2. Ah, but Apple was doing it to help save your battery and your phone. You can just buy another battery.
3. But Apple never told you that back then!
4. But it happened with the last update after 5 years of updates, and the phones were still "usable." Is Android any better?
5. But the court determined it was a crime! Get your money for the injury they imposed on you!

I mean, I don't know what to think. But I guess you, @LAwLz, are right in that the courts did call Apple out on this one and fined them. Is $65 (or more with interest) enough for a battery today or equivalent to the losses for having to upgrade sooner?

 

I still don't know what to entirely think about it. My thought is to remain as neutral as possible while recognizing the actions that did take place to help me make good decisions gong forward. I hope that those who felt they were scammed are propperly reimbursed and that Apple learns from any wrongdoing, if they haven't already.

 

(Maybe my feelings are clouded with my dissapointment in that I'd prefer something opposite to Apple's approach. Something more like the Fairphone. But now that the Fairphone may start selling in the USA it no longer comes with a headphone jack. There is no perfect phone, all of them stink, none do everything I'd like them to do, and this bothers me.)

[HenrySalayne]

It's hilarious that some people applaud everything their favourite brand is doing:

 

I clap every 5 minutes to keep the elephants away. There are no elephants around.

Conclusion: clapping is a necessity to keep elephants away.

 

Apple throttles devices to prevent crashes under load. There haven't been any crashes under load.

Conclusion: throttling is a necessity to prevent crashes on these devices.

 

----------------------------------------

 

At no point Apple have shown that throttling was a necessity on all or even the majority of affected devices. They created a vicious narrative ("we did it for our users") and they once again turned their followers into tools spreading and defending this narrative. If this would have been a feature - as Apple declared afterwards - the last thing they would have done is to not advertise it. It's Apple, come on.

The malicious intransparenty was there for a reason.

I want just to remind everyone how they secretly made noise cancelling worse...

[Issac Zachary]

28 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

It's hilarious that some people applaud everything their favourite brand is doing:

 

I clap every 5 minutes to keep the elephants away. There are no elephants around.

Conclusion: clapping is a necessity to keep elephants away.

 

Apple throttles devices to prevent crashes under load. There haven't been any crashes under load.

Conclusion: throttling is a necessity to prevent crashes on these devices.

 

----------------------------------------

 

At no point Apple have shown that throttling was a necessity on all or even the majority of affected devices. They created a vicious narrative ("we did it for our users") and they once again turned their followers into tools spreading and defending this narrative. If this would have been a feature - as Apple declared afterwards - the last thing they would have done is to not advertise it. It's Apple, come on.

The malicious intransparenty was there for a reason.

I want just to remind everyone how they secretly made noise cancelling worse...

Was it to prevent crashing or to prevent short battery life?

 

I don't know the workings of an iPhone, but there are plenty of devices that can throttle at whim. As someone who does a lot of things with electronics as a hobby, I don't see why they couldn't have done the same thing if it were for preventing crashing. Just keep the battery voltage above a minimum voltage and throttle the CPU as necessary to attain those voltages.

 

Of course the problem with that is the battey life could become terrible. Throttling it all the time would at least let you get through a day without the phone dying (in theory).

 

I have an iPad Mini 2 that is very slow that someone gave me. I'm not sure if I should file for some money or not. I probably should just sell it.

[suicidalfranco]

12 hours ago, LAwLz said:

That's a strawman argument and you know it. Nobody argued that "only haters had their phone shutting down".

Also, the throttling was to prevent the phones from shutting down. If your phone shut down then you were not affected by this. Apple got in trouble for preventing the phones from shutting down, but disabling the higher power states of the SoC.

don't really care about Apple, my comment was only targeted at mocking the fanboys who kept shifting the blame away from their lord and savior

[RejZoR]

19 hours ago, freeagent said:

I can tell a lot of you forget what it was like to use a shitty droid phone at the time that would crash as soon as you put a load on its anemic battery.

 

I think I would rather have reduced performance than a piece of shit that cant stay running without a cord plugged into it.

They have. While Apple's move was logical, lack of communication was not and that's really the issue. All they had to do was just show user a popup that degraded battery was detected and that it switched to low performance mode and give users ability to switch back on their own terms. They'd done that and none of this would be an issue.

[Obioban]

On 1/8/2024 at 3:40 PM, suicidalfranco said:

don't really care about Apple, my comment was only targeted at mocking the fanboys who kept shifting the blame away from their lord and savior

Actually not being a fanboy is being critical when deserved and not when it isn't.

 

Apple's move in this instance was poorly communicated, but it was customer friendly-- it made devices working better for longer. This is not an instance where they should be criticized. Doing so actually makes you the (anti Apple) fanboy.

[HenrySalayne]

Just now, Obioban said:

it made devices working better for longer.

Proof needed.