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Man Sues Apple Over Slowing Down Older iPhones

Man Sues Apple Over Slowing Down Older iPhones

Apple has confirmed it does slow down older phones, but say it's not an attempt to encourage customers to upgrade.

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

A man has filed a class action suit against Apple for slowing down older iPhones.

Stefan Bogdanovich, from LA, claims Apple's decision to slow down the operating systems on older phones to save battery was never asked for agreed upon by customers, and that it lowers the value of phones, TMZ reports.

Apple has admitted to intentionally slowing down its older phones. Credit: PA

He believes it's something Apple do to encourage people to buy the newest version iPhone. He is hoping that Apple will stop the practice and give him some money back for damages.

Apple bosses admitted that it deliberately slows down older phones without letting customers know.

However, they claimed its not an attempt to get people to upgrade, but is done as a precautionary measure to ensure that older phones don't break or start shutting down.

via GIPHY

Apple told Reuters: "Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions.

"We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future."

The tech company claims that the lithium-ion batteries used in iPhones, degrade over time and if they didn't slow down the phones' performance internal parts could be damaged.

Of course, long before the announcement, iPhone users have complained of their phones slowing down around the time of a new release.

John Poole, Primate labs founder, tested the theory on a iPhone 6s and iPhone 7, looking at their performance over time.

Credit: PA

In a blog post, he wrote: "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'. This will likely feed into the 'planned obsolecense' narrative."

Whether one man from LA can take on Apple and win remains to be seen, but you've got to give him some credit for giving it a shot.

Source: TMZ; The Independent; Geek Bench

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: US News, Technology, Apple, iPhone