A South Korean court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit over allegations that Apple deliberately slowed the performance of older iPhones in order to push customers to buy new models (via The Korea Herald).
“The lawsuit is dismissed,” a court judge briefly said, without explaining the reason for the ruling, denying the lawsuit brought by some 9,800 Korean smartphone buyers who were seeking 2 billion won ($1.64 million) against Apple.
The ruling comes five years after a civil lawsuit brought by some 64,000 plaintiffs demanding damages of 200,000 won ($163) each. The lawsuit claimed that Apple had lured iPhone users into installing a software upgrade that caused a performance slowdown, spurring users to replace their devices with new ones.
In early 2017, Apple introduced power management features for older iPhones designed to prevent unexpected shutdowns during times of peak power draw on devices with degraded batteries. The features throttle the processor on older iPhones with less than-optimal batteries, slowing their performance.
Apple mismanaged announcing the power management features, not widely publicizing the move until late 2017, causing many iPhone users to feel deceived by Apple.
Following an apology, Apple implemented a battery replacement program that allowed all customers with an iPhone 6, 6s, 7, 6 Plus, 6s Plus, 7 Plus, and SE to replace their batteries for a reduced fee through the end of 2018.