Judge clears way for $500M iPhone throttling settlements

No good deed goes unpunished. The “throttling” was not nefarious, but a good faith effort to protect consumers from overheating phones. In other words what tort attorneys call a business opportunity. 

robin phuber said:

No good deed goes unpunished. The “throttling” was not nefarious, but a good faith effort to protect consumers from overheating phones. In other words what tort attorneys call a business opportunity. 

Like I’ve said before, had Apple simply been more clear in disclosing the throttling there would have been no issue. Since they didn’t, they left their intentions open to interpretation. Whether they did to protect consumers or as an underhanded move to drive sales is completely dependent on your view of Apple. Even in the charitable view they may have driven people to unnecessarily buy new phones when a simple battery replacement would have sufficed. 

robin huber said:

No good deed goes unpunished. The “throttling” was not nefarious, but a good faith effort to protect consumers from overheating phones. In other words what tort attorneys call a business opportunity. 

The throttling wasn't done to prevent overheating. It was done to prevent "unexpected shutdown" which is a case where the phone's battery display shows a relatively high state-of-charge like 20-30%, yet the phone shuts off immediately after a heavy load is applied such as CPU, GPU, camera, etc. 

Users should have been given the ability to opt into this behavior, but Apple, always trying to keep things simple, made the behavior automatic for all users. 

MplsP said:

robin phuber said:

No good deed goes unpunished. The “throttling” was not nefarious

Like I’ve said before, had Apple simply been more clear in disclosing the throttling there would have been no issue. Since they didn’t, they left their intentions open to interpretation. Whether they did to protect consumers or as an underhanded move to drive sales is completely dependent on your view of Apple. Even in the charitable view they may have driven people to unnecessarily buy new phones when a simple battery replacement would have sufficed. 

Exactamundo on both points. I think Apple didn't want to say in any way "our iPhones slow down" because they knew there would be ugly YTers mugging for their cameras shouting "APPLE THROTTLES iPHONES SPEED" and "YOUR iPHONE IS SLOW" or whatever. And as it happens that's what they got anyway.

Given that some well known provider throttle "unlimited" throughput I can see why Apple might want to avoid "nannyism" backlash. And they got it anyway.

If they had braved that in the beginning it might have cost them a lot less than $500M pocket lint. $500M here, $500M there, pretty soon we're talking real money.

Draco said:

robin huber said:

No good deed goes unpunished. The “throttling” was not nefarious, but a good faith effort to protect consumers from overheating phones. In other words what tort attorneys call a business opportunity. 

The throttling wasn't done to prevent overheating. It was done to prevent "unexpected shutdown" which is a case where the phone's battery display shows a relatively high state-of-charge like 20-30%, yet the phone shuts off immediately after a heavy load is applied such as CPU, GPU, camera, etc. 

Users should have been given the ability to opt into this behavior, but Apple, always trying to keep things simple, made the behavior automatic for all users. 

Why would anyone opt out of ensuring their phone doesn't unexpectedly turn off. Apple wrote software to improve reliability and are being fined for it. It's an absurd cash grab by the attorneys.