Apple might owe you up to 3000 for slowing down your iPhone. Under a proposed settlement disclosed on Friday, Apple agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle a lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses the company of intentionally slowing down certain iPhones years after they were released.

When Did Apple Start Slowing Down iPhones?

In late 2017, customers publicly complained that they believed Apple was engaged in so-called planned obsolescence. This means that Apple intentionally slows its older phones as they release new models. In response, Apple said software on certain older iPhones sometimes reduced their processing power when the battery was low. This is to prevent them from abruptly shutting down.

Shortly afterwards, Apple confirmed customers’ suspicions. They admitted that they had been slowing the performance of older iPhones to compensate for battery degradation. Apple’s failure, many people believed, lay not in its inability to change the physical limitations of lithium-ion batteries but in its decision to simply withhold information from customers about the performance-throttling software.

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Apple could pay between $310 million and $500 million. This depends on how many customers file claims. Customers should expect to receive $25 per eligible device they own. However, you could receive more if fewer customers than expected file claims. The plaintiffs’ lawyers will also get a cut.

Eligible Models and Customers

Eligible devices include any iPhone 6, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus and SE that ran iOS 10.2.1 or later. Or any iPhone 7 or 7 Plus that ran iOS 11.2 or later. Eligible customers had to live in the United States, and their devices had to run the given software before Dec. 21, 2017.

Speaking to iPhone users, they actually did realize the sudden drop in performance and just thought it was their fault for filling up their internal storage. It raises a lot of questions in terms of the integrity of  Apple as a company. It’s funny what companies will do t get sales.

Do Other Companies Slow down Their Phones?

Other companies have fallen prey to the same accusations but they say it’s not intentional. “ Samsung does not slow phones down intentionally. Well, the jury’s official in on this, and the answer is ‘YES’ Samsung has been found guilty of slowing down older phones through software updates. They claim that the reason is that the update is optimised for a newer phone, and not done intentionally.

Roberto Santocho, a Consultant at Linux Maintenance, has a theory to what’s actually happening. Samsung and practically all somewhat recent Android phones are slowed down by AndroidOS.  That is a fact, how that came to be is an interesting story. Android did not have this feature until Apple was crucified by the media. The feature in iPhones only slowed down the CPU slightly. What this does is to extend the life of the battery so that iPhone owners could spend less money on battery replacement.

That means that iPhones actually last longer with this feature. This feature can be turned off by the owner so there is nothing to fuss about. Google then copied this same exact feature into AndroidOS. Now for the past several years, all AndroidOS slow the CPU down the battery gets old just like iPhones.

Let’s Talk…

I don’t think Apple is slowing down your iPhone and neither is Samsung doing it on purpose. I think the issue with older Samsung phones and in general, older android phones is that as hardware is getting better, the operating system and user applications try to incorporate new features.

They try to make use of the oomph that the newer hardware provides. This leaves older devices struggling to keep up. Teaching an old dog new tricks can be hard, so just buy a new phone ad experience the latest software on the latest hardware.

What do you think?