Apple agrees to pay $113M in settlement with 33 states News
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Apple agrees to pay $113M in settlement with 33 states

Apple has settled with 33 states and the District of Columbia, agreeing Wednesday to pay $113 million to rectify its past practice of slowing customers’ old iPhones in efforts to preserve battery life.

In January 2017 Apple released an iPhone 6 update—iOS 10.2.1—which sought to prolong battery life by “throttling” iPhone processing performance. As a result of this update, plaintiffs sued Apple alleging that the tech company deceived consumers about the purpose and effect of its iOS updates.

The complaint further stated:

Prior to launching iOS 10.2.1., Apple knew it had a problem. Specifically, Apple knew that its iPhone customers were unhappy with the high rates of UPOs (unauthorized power offs), but it also knew that iPhone customers would be unhappy if Apple throttled phone performance to fix the problem. Rather than being candid or forthright with its customers, Apple chose to misrepresent both the nature of the UPO problem, and the throttling solution, to its customers. Apple did not reverse course on this internal decision until it was publicly called out for its deception by the press in late December 2017.

The settlement agreement requires Apple to pay $24.6 million to California while the remaining $88.4 million will be divided among the other 32 states. Apple is also required to maintain websites that provide information to consumers about battery life and performance management.