Following the filing of a legal claim accusing Apple of secretly slowing the performance of older phones, millions of iPhone users may be eligible for payouts.
According to Justin Gutmann, the company misled users about an upgrade that was supposed to improve performance but actually slowed phones down.
He is suing for up to £768 million in damages on behalf of up to 25 million UK iPhone users.
Apple claims that it has “never” intentionally reduced the lifespan of its products.
The claim, filed with the Competition Appeal Tribunal, claims that Apple slowed the performance of older iPhones, a process known as “throttling,” in order to avoid costly recalls or repairs.
It relates to the introduction of a power management tool released in a software update to iPhone users in January 2017, to combat performance issues and stop older devices from abruptly shutting down.
Mr Gutmann, a consumer advocate, claims that the tool’s information was not included in the software update download description at the time, and that the company failed to make it clear that it would slow down devices.
He claims that Apple created this tool to conceal the fact that iPhone batteries may have struggled to run the latest iOS software, and that instead of recalling products or offering replacement batteries, the company instead pushed users to download software updates.