Apple Sued Over The Slow Down Of Older iPhones

Whether or not you believe Apple's response that it doesn’t slow down older iPhone models to promote sales, but that the slowdown is actually due to worn batteries, the company’s lack of up-front transparency has come back to bit ‘em where it hurts.

A new class action suit filed by L.A.’s Stefan Bogdanovich claims Apple's decision to slow the operation of older phones to save battery life was never requested or agreed upon — and lowers the value of their phones. He also doesn’t buy the tech giant’s explanation and says the slow-down is just a ploy to to get folks to upgrade. Apple could have avoided this issue in a variety of ways. Rather than secretly hamstring the iPhone's CPU, it could have educated users about the limitations of lithium-ion batteries instead of burying the info in a user manual, Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit tells Wired. Or Apple could sell battery replacement kits to consumers.

Apple argues that allowing consumers to replace the battery could make the iPhone more vulnerable to hacks, and that letting people peek inside would make the iPhone easier to counterfeit. Apple has never authorized an independent company to repair iPhones, though it has for Macs. Apple Stores will only replace iPhone batteries if they fail a specific diagnostic test, the specifics of which aren't made public. Third-party replacement repair usually costs about $40, compared to the $79 that Apple charges.