Apple is facing lawsuits over its policy of slowing down older iPhones

It’s only been a few days since the world learned Apple was purposely slowing down older iPhones in an effort, as they say, to save battery life.

According to The Register, a complaint filed in the Northern District of the State of IL on Thursday states that Apple deliberately “purposefully neglected” to tell people about the feature in order to drive up sales. “This fix will also cause users to think, “my phone is slow so I should replace it” not, ‘my phone is slow so I should replace its battery.’ Poole added that this will likely feed into the “planned obsolecense [sic]” narrative”. After a Reddit post on slowing performance of older iPhones went viral, independent researchers at Primate Labs conducted their own tests on older models.

Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit. The company justified the move, saying that this is done only because as the phone ages, its battery performance also diminishes and slowing down helps prolonged the life of the device.

The company said the software update applied to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, 6S and 6S Plus and SE, and earlier this year was extended to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

The problems with peak current draws especially occur when batteries are cold or low on charge, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components, Apple said.

Apple’s solution is to reduce the amount of water being forced against the blockage, making the battery last longer but taking a hit on performance to do so. The price is $79, plus $6.95 shipping, subject to local tax.

The suit says Apple “needlessly subjects consumers to purchasing newer and more expensive iPhones when a replacement battery could have allowed consumers to continue to use their older iPhones”.

Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas have filed suit in the US District Court for the Central District of California, accusing Apple of intentionally slowing down older devices to promote the sale of newer models.

Ala Abdulla and Lance Raphael, both of Illinois; Sam Mangano, of Ohio; Ryan Glaze, of IN; and Kirk Pedelty, of North Carolina, all said they purchased new iPhones after earlier models grew sluggish. Apple has also come out and confirmed this and said that it added this feature to maintain optimum performance and user experience for its iPhone users.