Apple may have made a misstep by admitting to intentionally slowing down CPU frequencies on older iPhone models, because some legal trouble is soon headed their way.
Stefan Bogdanovich, an L.A. resident and Apple customer, and Dakota Speas, are starting a class action lawsuit against the tech giant, Mercury News reports. They claim Apple’s policy of slowing down older iPhone models purposely targets the consumers’ wallets and disrupts the customer experience. They also are claiming that Apple’s tactic of slowing down performance speeds of the iPhone in order to conserve battery life was never requested or agreed upon by customers, not to mention an obvious tactic to coerce people into forking over cash for an upgrade.
The discovery about Apple’s purposeful speed switching was first brought to light via a Reddit post, where a user shared screenshots of the performance speeds before and after getting a battery replacement (once a new battery was installed, the speed went back to factory settings.)
Apple released a statement to The Verge, claiming:
“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.
Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.”
Source: Complex