Ruling by judge in appeals court paves the way for Apple to settle #batterygate class action suit
Back in May 2020, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila gave preliminary approval to a class action settlement between plaintiffs and Apple. To stop iPhone models with a degraded battery from shutting down when asked to perform a processing-heavy task, Apple quietly sent out an iOS update (10.2.1) that throttled the speed of the CPU cores on affected iPhone models without getting approval from device owners or even letting them know. Thus, #batterygate was born. The settlement called for Apple to pay plaintiffs up to $500 million.
Each plaintiff is expected to receive approximately $65 now that a judge has cleared the way for Apple to make these payments. The judge removed the lone obstacle blocking the payments from being disseminated by denying the appeal of two iPhone owners who were blocking the release of the payouts by objecting to the terms of the settlement. According to SiliconValley.com (via AppleInsider), now that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued this ruling, the class action settlement can proceed.
The lawyer representing the iPhone owners, Tyson Redenbarger, said that 3 million claims were received. The $65 payout that each plaintiff will receive is just an estimate and the final figure will be based on the actual number of valid claims received. Redenbarger said that some claims are still being assessed. Even though Apple agreed to pay $310 million to $500 million to plaintiffs, the company still denied any wrongdoing on its part.
The Batterygate fiasco did lead Apple to add Battery Health tools to iOS
Just days before the curtain came down on 2017, Apple published an apology while offering a 63% discount on battery replacements for certain out-of-warranty iPhone models dropping the price to $29. And in iOS 11.3, Apple launched the Battery Health tools that show iPhone users what their current battery capacity is compared to the 100% capacity the cell was at when the phone was first taken out of the box.
For example, when I first booted up my iPhone 11 Pro Max for the first time, the maximum capacity on the Battery Health & Charging page was 100%. After all of these years, the capacity is down to 83%. If that figure drops below 80%, I will receive a message that says, "Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity."
To check the health of your iPhone's battery, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging.
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