Have you suspected that your iPhone 6 or iPhone 7 phone has been working way too slow as it gets older, despite the fact that you have taken good care it? Well, Apple has confirmed that the company has been deliberately slowing down the operating systems on older iPhones. The company says it has been using this practice to prevent phones from shutting down due to older batteries.
Apple’s admission confirms a long held conspiracy theory among the public that the tech giant purposefully makes their products obsolete as new versions are released. The theory suggests that the frustration caused by unexpected shutdowns and poor product perforce incentivizes consumers to purchase the latest upgrade.
Users of iPhone 6, 6s, and 6s Plus made complaints about spontaneous shutdowns, even though their devices had enough power. The company issued an update that fixed the shutdown issue, but caused the devices to slow down.
John Poole, the founder of Primate Labs and Geekbench developer, compared data from the performance testing Geekbench had done on users’ iPhone 6s and 7 phones. Poole analyzed data from a sample set of approximately 100,000 phones, which revealed processors did slow down after the update and that the problem was “likely to get worse as phones (and their batteries) continue to age.”
Apple released the following statement in response to the attention that Poole’s analysis gained:
“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.”
Since the news broke, Apple has been hit by multiple lawsuits from consumers for not disclosing their actions sooner. James C. Vlahakis, of Atlas Consumer Law is lead counsel in one of these class action lawsuits. If you owned one of the devices discussed in this blog, you can click here to fill out a free case review.
You can also call (312) 313-1613 to speak with our team of Chicago consumer attorneys about your legal concerns today.