A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when dealing with people in the most litigious country in the world. Apple has been sued by residents of California shortly after admitting that older iPhones are throttled to preserve battery power.
The lawsuit accuses Apple of slowing down older iPhones when new models appear on the market. In this case, the two claimants believe that their existing smartphones were affected after the iPhone 8 was launched. The two are hoping to turn the case into a class action suit, allowing American who owns an iPhone from before 2017 to get in on the resolution.
This seems to take advantage of Apple’s admission that appeared earlier this week. However, it also completely misunderstands the reasons for the software throttling.
The suit alleges that the slowing of old iPhones is meant to encourage users to upgrade, which isn’t the case. Instead, Apple is only attempting to fix a known issue with iPhone battery degradation.
iPhone batteries eventually lose the ability to provide enough power during peak processor activity. A case that would eventually lead to the phone shutting off without warning. iOS 10.2.1 was designed to reduce power consumption and smooth out the power draw spikes to prevent this from happening. It would also ensure that the iPhone retained its all-day battery life.
Of course, a situation like this is probably why Apple didn’t tell anyone about it in the first place. The “fix” was only discovered by a joint effort between Reddit and Geekbench; which eventually forced Cupertino to admit to what is going on.
[Source: MacRumors]
