Apple Pays €25 Million Fine To French Prosecutor Regarding Intentional iPhone Throttling

Image via Apple 

Another iPhone throttling case has come to Apple today, but this time it pertains to older iPhones that have been recently updated to iOS 13.3.1. A French consumer fraud company fined the Cupertino firm 25 million euros for intentionally slowing down iPhone 6, SE and 7 models.

The Directorate-General for Competition, Consumption and the Suppression of Fraud, also known as the DGCCRF, is part of France’s economic ministry. The organisation portrayed Apple’s failure to inform users that iOS updates can slow down older iPhones and iOS devices. This contributes to the reason that the slowdowns were considered “intentional” to the iPhone users.

Here is the translated quote from the DGCCRF regarding their issues against Apple:

"Following an investigation by the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumption and the Suppression of Fraud (DGCCRF) and after the agreement of the Public Prosecutor of Paris, the Apple group agreed to pay a fine of 25M € in the context of a criminal transaction.

"Seized on January 5, 2018, by the Paris Prosecutor's Office to investigate the complaint of an association against Apple, the DGCCRF has shown that ‌iPhone‌ owners were not informed that the updates of the iOS operating system (10.2.1 and 11.2) they installed were likely to slow down the operation of their device.

"These updates, released during 2017, included a dynamic power management device which, under certain conditions and especially when the batteries were old, could slow down the functioning of the ‌iPhone‌ 6, SE models. and 7."

The DGCCRF’s investigation through the iPhone throttling problem follows up to the initial case from late 2017 and early 2018 regarding the iOS 11.2 and 10.2.1 updates affecting the speed and battery life of iPhone 6, SE and 7 models. The Cupertino company was seized by the Paris Prosecutor’s Office a few months after the iPhone slowdown issues initially began in January 2018, which is 2 years ago from now. Apple called into action to this issue by adding battery health features and peak performance adjustments to the power settings in iOS 11.3, including lowering battery replacement fees for affected iPhone users in the Apple Store. The company apologised for their lack of commitment to communicate with its customers when the issues arose.

On the bottom line, Apple already accepted with the Paris Prosecutor’s Office that they’ll pay for the 25 million euros fine and publish a press release on their website for a minimum of a month.