Three Years After Settlement, Owners of Old iPhones to get $65 From Apple

Eligible owners of older iPhones will receive about $65 each from Apple now that final appeals to a 2020 class action lawsuit settlement have been exhausted.

Apple had agreed to pony up between $310 million and $500 million to settle claims that it intentionally slowed down or “throttled,” via software, the performance of certain models to avoid what the company called unexpected shutdowns related to battery wear. The episode, which brought negative publicity to Apple and spurred litigation, came to be known as Batterygate.

Claimants can expect the payout, originally estimated at $25, soon. Those eligible to file a claim as part of the class action had until October 2020 to do so. The suit was one of the earliest to gain widespread publicity among consumers.

A class action allows one or a small number of plaintiffs to pursue a case on behalf of a larger group of people. Final payments factor in the number of people who file a claim, minus legal and other fees.

This year Google agreed to pay $23 million to settle several class action lawsuits dating back a decade. The deadline to file a claim was July 31.

Facebook parent Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a 5-year-old privacy suit relating to Facebook user data improperly shared with other companies. The deadline to submit a claim in that settlement is Aug. 25.

Several late-model iPhones affected

Apple posted a public mea culpa letter in 2017 apologizing to smartphone users affected by the throttling. iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 7 and 7 Plus handsets that were running certain versions of the iOS mobile operating system software were subject to the slowdown.

At the time, Apple reduced the price of an out-of-warranty replacement battery for iPhones from $79 to $29. But many consumers claimed they already had spent hundreds of dollars to buy new phones because Apple hadn’t revealed the cause of the problem.