Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 28-12-2017

Eight lawsuits have been filed in various federal courts against Apple after the company announced it slowed down customer’s iPhones without warning to compensate for poor battery performance.  

Reuters reports the tweak may have led iPhone owners to misguided attempts to resolve issues over the last year, the lawsuits contend.

All the lawsuits – filed in US District Courts in California, New York and Illinois – seek class-action to represent potentially millions of iPhone owners nationwide.

Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment on the filings. The company acknowledged last week for the first time in detail that operating system updates released since “last year” for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 included a feature “to smooth out” power supply from batteries that are cold, old or low on charge.

Apple says phones without the adjustment would shut down abruptly because of a precaution designed to prevent components from getting fried.

The disclosure follows an 18 December analysis by Primate Labs, which develops an iPhone performance-measuring app, that identified blips in processing speed and concluded that a software change had to be behind them.

One of the lawsuits, filed Thursday in San Francisco, said that “the batteries’ inability to handle the demand created by processor speeds” without the software patch was a defect.

“Rather than curing the battery defect by providing a free battery replacement for all affected iPhones, Apple sought to mask the battery defect.”

The plaintiff in that case is represented by attorney Jeffrey Fazio, who represented plaintiffs in a $53-million settlement with Apple in 2013 over its handling of iPhone warranty claims.

Rory Van Loo, a Boston University professor specialising in consumer technology law says users over the last year could have blamed an aging computer processor for app crashes and sluggish performance. 

He says some of the law suits state users chose to buy a new phone – when the true cause may have been a weak battery that could have been replaced for a fraction of the cost.

“If it turns out that consumers would have replaced their battery instead of buying new iPhones had they known the true nature of Apple’s upgrades, you might start to have a better case for some sort of misrepresentation or fraud.”

But Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director for the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, in an email says that Apple may not have done wrong.

“We still haven’t come to consumer protection norms around aging products. Pointing to a device with a security flaw as an example. The ethical approach could include degrading or even disabling functionality.”

The lawsuits seek unspecified damages in addition to, in some cases, reimbursement. A couple of the complaints seek court orders barring Apple from throttling iPhone computer speeds or requiring notification in future instances.

Twitter: @FaizelPatel143