Some iPhone owners will finally receive up to $65 after the company was accused of throttling the batteries of iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 7, alongside the Plus variants of these phones.
As reported by Mercury News, a judge has scuppered a last-ditch appeal from two iPhone owners against the settlement (who presumably wanted more money), paving the way for Apple to finally dish out the long-awaited payments.
Apple had denied these claims at first, by leaving out its new battery optimization feature in a new iOS update. It eventually acknowledged that iOS 10.2.1 did indeed introduce battery throttling, and apologized with a new FAQ page on Battery Health on its website.
The agreed settlement by Apple was roughly $500 million in this lawsuit. If you were one of the three million owners who claimed before the October 2020 deadline who used one of these iPhones, alongside iOS 10.2.1 or iOS 11.2 prior to December 21, 2017, you may receive a payment soon.
Check in the mail
It was a rare blip in Apple’s public relations messaging when it was discovered that iOS 10.2.1 throttled battery performance. At first, there wasn’t an acknowledgment in the update notes. But it wasn’t until users started noticing a massive battery drain that it updated this new ‘feature’ on its update page.
Looking back, this was all done out of order. The new Battery Health page should have arrived first, and when the new update was released, an acknowledgment of this should have been there.
It gave the impression that Apple was sweeping this under the carpet when there wasn’t any need to. And unfortunately, it’s why it had to pay a $500 million settlement through the courts.
While $65 may not pay for a new iPhone 15, it could help pay for a new iPhone 14 case if you’ve been looking for one. Every little helps.
