[HN Gopher] Apple Agrees to Pay $113M to Settle 'Batterygate' Ca...
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Apple Agrees to Pay $113M to Settle 'Batterygate' Case over iPhone
Slowdowns
Author : BostonFern
Score : 28 points
Date : 2020-11-18 22:23 UTC (36 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (text.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (text.npr.org)
| CapriciousCptl wrote:
| So, I'm somehow developing a pro-Apple bias these days. This
| whole batterygate to me is kind of based on conjecture-- that
| Apple slowed old phones with the intention to sell more new ones.
| If there's any supporting evidence, or anything that's come up in
| discovery that Apple acted in bad faith, I'd possibly change my
| (admittedly biased) mind.
|
| But really, slowing the phones down to extend battery life is a
| reasonable tradeoff and there's just not a preponderance of
| evidence suggesting Apple acted in its own interests and hurt
| existing users. The main problem is this "feature" wasn't out in
| the open, but again, it just doesn't seem that bad to me.
| ponker wrote:
| When there's a rich kid in town, everyone will turn him upside
| down to see what change falls out of his pockets. Apple is
| where Apple is because it doesn't put all of its features "out
| in the open." I don't want 500 config settings for my phone and
| a lot of other's don't either. If you want to run a webserver
| on your phone that's cool, there are products for you, but some
| people want the idiotproof solution.
| xahrepap wrote:
| I own an iPhone because I got sick of these kinds of issues I
| was having with my Pixel phones. (would last ~1yr of perfect
| bliss. Then the honeymoon ends and the phone would just behave
| like crap). I decided to give another brand a shot.
|
| I'll tell you what will really tick me off in another year or
| so... If my device is, without warning, notification, ability
| to change, etc, purposefully nerfing itself for ANY REASON.
| That will make me really upset. Especially since I can't just
| pop the back off and toss a new battery in there.
|
| Good faith or not. It's an anti-consumer move. If my battery
| even pretended to be removable, you might convince me
| otherwise. But gluing the battery in under a glued in screen
| and then throttling my device based on the battery's age...
| Just really bothers me.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I think this is the crux of the issue. Apple had to make a call
| for their customers: ensure the low battery is as long-lasting
| and predictable as possible around 1-5%, or keep high
| performance as the phone battery degrades quicker and shuts
| off. I think many people thoroughly understand how crucial it
| can be to have that last 1-2% and going into a situation where
| you think you have 5%, but then the phone dies, is a pretty bad
| experience for the "premium experience" that Apple sells.
|
| This is an engineering trade-off and not something that
| typically gets publically broadcast to customers. I'm sure
| there's lots of other niche feature tweaks like this to the
| iPhone that we're unaware about. They definitely could've and
| should've been more transparent about this, but I understand
| why it didn't occur to them.
| damnencryption wrote:
| > So, I'm somehow developing a pro-Apple bias these days
|
| Everytime this happens to me, I remind myself to visit their
| accessories store on the Apple website.
|
| As an example, the new magsafe seems like a clear way to
| extract more money.
|
| The magsafe charger doesn't have a removable cable and it is a
| very thin cable which is likely to break after minimal usage.
|
| The iPad's keyboard costs as much as an entry level Ryzen
| laptop.
|
| Non-upgradable everything so you pay for future-proofing
| upfront.
| invisible wrote:
| I agree that it's possible they weren't being malicious. The
| part that gets me is that they didn't decide to instead allow
| folks to set a max battery charge to extend their battery life.
| It's pretty widely accepted that charging a battery to 100%
| over-and-over will cause battery degradation.
|
| It seems fair to me that decisions that are hidden from
| consumers and obviously degrade the consumer's experience
| should negatively affect a company (and more than just the loss
| of goodwill).
| markdown wrote:
| Yet they're still ignoring flexgate which affects devices made
| across a number of years. I paid an arm and a let for a Macbook
| Pro (that's what they cost in my country), only to have it turned
| into a paperweight by a manufacturing defect that Apple
| acknowledges but won't remedy except for devices made in 2016.
|
| The pox on Apple!
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/20/apple-faces-another-fle...
| https://support.apple.com/13-inch-macbook-pro-display-backli...
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| As usual, it doesn't seem like the end consumer benefits from
| these settlements.
|
| I would like to see one time where the end user receives a free
| iPhone if their model was included in the lawsuit.
| post_break wrote:
| Free iPhone? You're lucky to get a free battery out of Apple
| after they got caught.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| The batteries weren't free, just $29 instead of $79.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Agreed. That's might point.
|
| It says people received $25.
|
| This settlement amount goes to lawyers and the states.
| RKearney wrote:
| You're free to opt-out of the class action and use your own
| funds to launch a legal case against Apple and ask for however
| much you want.
| ajsharp wrote:
| Ok, how do I um...get that money??
| pkaye wrote:
| > As part of Wednesday's settlement, $113 million will be
| distributed among the states, including California, Tennessee
| and Pennsylvania. The funds will cover attorneys' fees and will
| be used to fund future consumer protection investigators.
|
| You will get nothing by the looks of it.
| kahrl wrote:
| 0.00565% of Apple's $2T market cap.
| loeg wrote:
| Does that seem inappropriately high or low for "batterygate?"
| Karunamon wrote:
| Worth mentioning here is that this wasn't just about the "sneaky"
| fix for battery degradation, it was about doing this _without
| notice_ , and having internal tooling that would deny a
| replacement (even at full retail price) if the battery was above
| an arbitrary health threshold (but still low enough to cause
| throttling).
|
| Before Apple changed their tune, if you read about this, and went
| into an Apple store for a replacement, they absolutely would not
| give you one, even if you paid full retail for it.
|
| This left people in a no-win situation. The only way you could
| get a working device was to have a third party replacement done
| (and kill your warranty) or shell out for a new phone.
| ptudan wrote:
| As of two years ago, apple had sold 2.2 BILLION iphones.
|
| The cost of this scam per phone was $.05.
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(page generated 2020-11-18 23:00 UTC)