Apple's $500M lawsuit on iPhone throttling gets delayed by COVID-19

By Joe Wituschek
published

iPhone 6 and 6S
iPhone 6 and 6S (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple's throttling controversy lawsuit is coming to a close.
  • A federal judge in California has given preliminary approval on a settlement.
  • If agreed upon, Apple will pay up to $500 million to settle the lawsuit.

One of Apple's long-running class-action lawsuits seems to be close to a settlement. According to a report from Law360, a federal judge in California has given preliminary approval on the settlement on Friday. The judge, however, delayed the final approval due to the coronavirus outbreak.

"During a hearing held via Zoom's videoconferencing tool, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila told the parties he wants to extend the final approval deadlines by a few weeks due to the COVID-19 crisis and he told them to meet and confer about proposing a new date for a final settlement approval hearing that would take place sometime in December."

The lawsuit is based on the company's decision to slow down older iPhones to avoid performance issues. If the settlement goes through as the deal currently stands, Apple will pay up to $500 million for its actions.

"Under the proposed deal, Apple has agreed to pay up to $500 million in total, depending on the amount of iPhone users to participate in the deal, according to court filings. Class members would receive $25 each for their phones. If the payouts, attorney fees and expenses don't add up to at least $310 million, class members will receive up to $500 apiece until that minimum settlement amount is reached."

Apple's counsel, Christopher Chorba of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, says that the settlement will be limited to those who installed specific software updates on iPhones ranging from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 7 Plus, as well as the first-generation iPhone SE.

"Chorba also stressed that the settlement only applies to individuals who performed certain software updates on their Apple iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus and SE devices, and not all owners of those phones."

The final approval for the settlement is currently expected to be reached in a few weeks.

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.

3 Comments
  • They need to get stung on this, HARD. They were very dishonest indeed.
    At the beginning you could if you squint hard enough make the case to say that this was all about the consumer. The second they knew, (they were getting genius bar diagnostics, and it didn't take long to appear on Reddit, Twitter, facebook, and various forums including THIER OWN where they'd routinely remove posts whenever they could), it became flat out dishonesty.
  • The throttling was, and is, for the consumer but they shouldn't have hid it, and for that they should be punished
  • No, no: all much ado about nothing.