Apple to face £768m lawsuit over claims iPhone update slowed down devices
Apple is set to face a £768m class action lawsuit over claims it misled iPhone users into downloading updates that slowed old iPhones down.
Campaigner and consumer champion Justin Gutmann has filed a claim to the competition appeals tribunal, seeking around £768m in damages for up to 25m British iPhone owners.
The lawsuit comes after Apple put out a power management tool in 2017, to prevent older iPhone models, that may have struggled to run the latest iOS software, from shutting down suddenly.
The claim says Apple failed to properly inform iPhone users about the update, and failed to tell them the update would slow down their devices.
The lawsuit claims that Apple introduced its update to disguise the fact that iPhone batteries were unable to cope with the new iOS processing demands, in order to avoid recalling or replacing batteries.
Apple later offered to replace customers batteries at a discounted rate, in 2017, after users noticed performance issues, as it also allowed users to turn the power management update off.
However, the claim argues that Apple failed to properly publicise its offer to customers.