Since 2016, an increasing number of iPhone 6s owners have encountered problems manifested by the spontaneous shutdown of the mobile phone. Subsequent investigations revealed that Apple designed the iPhone series without taking into account the normal “aging” of the battery, manifested both by reducing energy storage capacity and the maximum power that can be delivered in times of heavy use. phone. As a result, an increasing number of iPhone 6s units came to a halt without warning, with partially degraded batteries unable to support the phone’s power consumption, even if the displayed charge level seemed sufficient.
Apple, good to pay for “sabotaging” iPhone performance
Trying to avoid negative publicity and the cost of a mass replacement of defective batteries during the warranty period, Apple has chosen to hide the problem by resorting to software “optimizations”. According to investigations made by users who noticed the inexplicable decrease in performance, iPhone 6 Plus devices updated to iOS 10.2.1 lost considerably of the processing power they had at the new stage, so that from an average score of 1471/2476 points in the benchmark Geekbenck, the score dropped to just 839/1377 points.
By artificially limiting power consumption, Apple has certainly solved the problems with sub-standard batteries, unable to support the consumption of the devices they were supposed to power. However, the solution came at the expense of “users”, the artificial degradation of performance fueling for many a false need to upgrade to the next generation iPhone, from which Apple had to gain directly.
In the official explanation, Apple specified that a lot of faulty batteries that ended up in the equipment of “a small number of iPhone 6s phones” were to blame, the proposed solution being the free replacement of batteries for the affected devices. In practice, most iPhone 6s devices have been affected by this problem, further investigations showing that Apple has not given up the practice of “optimizing” battery consumption for future generations of iPhone. The only concession made was the introduction of a setting that allows the manual deactivation of this optimization, informing users about possible unwanted consequences, manifested by the unexpected shutdown of the phone.
So far, the “Batterygate” scandal has cost Apple $ 500 million in damages in the first half of this year to settle a class action lawsuit involving injured iPhone users in the United States. Bringing together iPhone 6S buyers from 34 US states, another class action lawsuit ended with a defeat for Apple, with the company having to pay another $ 113 million for the decision to secretly reduce iPhone performance.
However, the agreement reached in court with the injured parties does not oblige Apple to recognize the use of practices that are contrary to the interests of consumers, the official position of the company remaining unchanged.
Robert J. Smith is still early into his career as tech reporter but has already had his work published in many major publications including JoyStiq and Android Authority. In regards to academics, Robert earned a degree in business from Fordham University. Robert has passion for emerging technology and covers upcoming products and breakthroughs in science and tech.
