Lawsuits filed against Apple rise from eight to more than 26

Apple has been facing lawsuits over slowing down older iPhones intentionally. The last figure reported was eight, however, this number has rapidly increased up to more than 26 lawsuits.

After Apple accepted the claims about slowing down older iPhones without informing, infuriated customers started suing the company. What were previously eight lawsuits, increased to over two dozen lawsuits across the United States (US).

Among all the lawsuits that were filed, 24 were action class complaints in the US. The latest two were filed in New York by Marc Honigman and in Ohio by Lauri Sullivan-Stefanou. Apple has also been sued in Israel and France, according to MacRumors.

Apple apologizes for slowing iPhones, offers battery replacement

As per Tech Juice, the complaint by Sullivan-Stefanou stated, “Unbeknownst to iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6s owners, Apple inserted code into iOS 10.2.1 that deliberately slowed down the processing performance of these phones by linking each phone’s processing performance with its battery health. Absent the code inserted by Apple, the reduced battery capacity of these phones would not have negatively affected processing performance.”

Although Apple has already apologized and reduced the battery replacing cost from $79 to $29 along with releasing a new software update to inform users about the iPhone’s battery health, some lawsuits demand Apple to compensate all the affected users and offer free battery replacements and refund customers who bought new iPhones in place of their slow old ones.

Also, some users still believed that Apple did that to force users to buy the newer models of iPhone. Honigman’s complaint stated this point of view, “Apple's intentional degradation of the iPhone's performance through the release of iOS impacted the usability of the device. Effectively, Apple has forced the obsolescence of iPhones by secretly diminishing their performance. Thus, Apple's admission has confirmed what iPhone users have long suspected – i.e., that Apple deliberately degrades the performance of older iPhone models through iOS updates to encourage users to buy new iPhones.”