Europe presses Apple for more iPhone 'batterygate' compensation

Three years after Apple slowed down its iPhones to protect aging batteries, a group in Europe is demanding the company pay compensation to all users.

Previously... Apple did slow down older iPhones to protect batteries, and it did fail to tell customers that it had done so. It also then apologized, introduced a cheaper battery replacement programme, and got hit with countless lawsuits.

Whatever that count of lawsuits became, Apple can now expect to add one more. According to Dutch publication iCulture, a collection of five European consumer organizations want compensation, and are threatening legal action.

"The group operates under the name Euroconsumers," says iCulture (in translation), "and consists of the Belgian Test Achats, OCU (Spain), Deco-Proteste (Portugal), AltroConsumo (Italy) and Proteste (Brazil). The latter is not European, but still participates."

"The plan is to get Apple to pay 60 euros to iPhone users who feel duped because Apple is said to be 'planned obsolescence,'" it continues.

Euroconsumers' demand for 60 euros (approximately $66), is because the group believes that the life of the affected iPhones were "artificially shortened."

If the decision to pursue this three years late seems as odd as including a Brazilian organisation in a European dispute, there is a reason. In February 2020, the French government finally settled its case against Apple over this issue, and fined the company 25 million euros ($27m).

According to iCulture, it is this settlement that prompted the Euroconsumers group to file for compensation too. So far the group has written to Apple twice, on June 11, and then again on July 2. The latter message gives Apple 15 days to respond before, the group says, it will begin legal action.

Apple has not responded publicly. And the Dutch iCulture notes that consumer organizations in its own country are not joining the compensation claim.

16 Comments

crowley 10431 comments · 15 Years

About 4 years ago

It's The Final Countdown for Apple.

cjk91108 9 comments · 14 Years

This is the concern with initially accepting the answer forced on them by their lack of strong response. The reason for the slow down was engineering. A cell out of balance with the others can (and has for many of my customers) caused a crash/system reset. The fine is ridiculous, Apple might continue to allow inexpensive battery replacement. These types of shake downs are happening in many industries these days. Maybe in a time before good information was a available this was a problem but to continue to find smaller and smaller examples to show that things are still out of control is benefiting very few. I do not for a moment believe that those users have been scammed out of the ROI of their device because Apple chose to limit battery usage when the battery began degrade with age. Not even Apple can stop physics.

jony0 380 comments · 12 Years

Rayz2016 said:

mr lizard said:

I wonder if the authors of these posts have any control over the false click bait headlines that adorn their stories? “Europe” is emphatically not pressing Apple for compensation.

This is the most deceptive headline ever, or really poor writing. Not sure which.

The other deceptive language which I think is a big part of the problem and exacerbated by the media is the use of the word "slow" or "slowdown". There is a palpable sense of permanence in that word that is not present in the proper word "throttle". As in :
"Apple did not (permanently) slow down your phone, the phone (temporarily) throttles the processor to avoid a sudden shutdown initiated to protect the battery. This will also will extend its life of the battery as well." (And possibly avoid the phone go Samsung Smokey.)
I was so relieved by that update because my 6S was shutting down with over 40% battery on a weekly basis and more. This stopped immediately after that update and i had never ever noticed a difference in performance until this whole issue came out in the open. And nobody that I know of ever mentioned a difference in performance for years until this whole kerfuffle came out. Yes, yes, Apple coulda shoulda done better, they should've done exactly what they did eventually, but in the real world this had no impact, nobody noticed.

Peza 198 comments · 5 Years

cjk91108 said:

This is the concern with initially accepting the answer forced on them by their lack of strong response. The reason for the slow down was engineering. A cell out of balance with the others can (and has for many of my customers) caused a crash/system reset. The fine is ridiculous, Apple might continue to allow inexpensive battery replacement. These types of shake downs are happening in many industries these days. Maybe in a time before good information was a available this was a problem but to continue to find smaller and smaller examples to show that things are still out of control is benefiting very few. I do not for a moment believe that those users have been scammed out of the ROI of their device because Apple chose to limit battery usage when the battery began degrade with age. Not even Apple can stop physics.

And what about those people who bought new iPhones because Apple told them their was absolutely nothing wrong with their batteries according to Apple diagnostics software.. Apple has got off incredibly lightly so far for its criminal act here, and yes it was a criminal act in some cases, like telling people to buy a new iPhone because their software stated the battery was fine, and let’s not forgot it wasn’t till Apple was caught red handed it was deliberately slowing phones down before they admitted it.. guilt all over them. Personally I’d have slapped Apple with a few billion dollars in fines and placed them under strict audits for 2 years to check they were not misdirecting consumers.

mknelson 1146 comments · 9 Years

Peza said:
And what about those people who bought new iPhones because Apple told them their was absolutely nothing wrong with their batteries according to Apple diagnostics software.. Apple has got off incredibly lightly so far for its criminal act here, and yes it was a criminal act in some cases, like telling people to buy a new iPhone because their software stated the battery was fine, and let’s not forgot it wasn’t till Apple was caught red handed it was deliberately slowing phones down before they admitted it.. guilt all over them. Personally I’d have slapped Apple with a few billion dollars in fines and placed them under strict audits for 2 years to check they were not misdirecting consumers.

What are you talking about? Apple told people to buy a new iPhone?

I have a friend who experienced the random shutdowns with her iPhone about 9 months before the software update with the "secret fix". Nobody ever told her to buy a new phone. I ran diagnostics and we could see her battery was testing fine during the AppleCare period, but was shutting off with the batter in the 20-40% full range. The fix was a welcome extension to the life of her phone until Apple did the battery replacement program.