Apple has accepted it will have to pay up to 500 million dollars to the owners of old iPhone models who accuse the technology giant of being behind a lowering in performance in order to encourage users to buy more recent versions.
"Following two years of litigation and an intense battle, the parties have come to an agreement," a San José (California) court stated on Friday.
In December 2017, Apple had made its excuses for deliberately slowing down some of its iPhones to compensate for their more or less obsolete batteries and to avoid them running out inadvertently. The group nonetheless denied any attempted, planned obsolescence.
According to the provisional agreement reached on Friday, Apple will pay out at least 310 million dollars, and up to 500 million including the complainants' lawyers' fees and compensating the American owners of iPhone (6, 7 and SE).
The latter will receive about 25 dollars per smartphone purchased, depending on the number of people taking steps to get the compensation. Lawyers ought to collect more than 90 million.
In France, the American firm was fined last month for not planning for updates being able to slow down older iPhones.
It received a fine of 25 million euro (27.8 million dollars) at the end of an investigation revealing "deceptive marketing practices by omission." The planned obsolescence allegation was dropped.
The Brussels Times
