Many popular tech companies face issues from time to time. The data watchdog, FTC, recently fined Facebook regarding the Cambridge Analytica incident. Now, Apple is in hot waters. France’s watchdog DGCCRF has fined the tech giant. The watchdog has fined Apple $27.4 million due to slowing old iPhones. Apple introduced an iOS update, which affected the performance of old iPhones. Moreover, the watchdog demands that the company needs to display a statement on its website.
A few years back, Apple introduced an iOS update that introduced new features for the old iPhones. When the battery gets old, the iOS will control the peak performance because the battery wouldn’t handle quick power draw. Due to these peaks in the iPhone, the battery might shut down quickly.
Although this feature is fine, Apple didn’t tell some users that it was monitoring the performance of a few devices. Later, the company apologized for this and introduced a feature known as Battery Health. You can check the total battery capacity through this feature. Moreover, it also informs you whether your phone can reach maximum capacity.
This created problems for the users, because many users noticed that the phone became slower when they played a game. However, they didn’t know that changing the battery would fix this issue. So, some users bought new iPhones, even though their current iPhones were working fine.
France’s Watchdog DGCCRF also mentioned that the iPhone users couldn’t just go to a previous iOS version. This shows that there was no way to improve the performance of old iPhones. The French watchdog said in a statement, “It was a misleading strategy on the part of Apple to not inform the users in time.”
Apple has accepted its mistake and wants to settle the issue by paying a fine of $27 million. Moreover, it has also admitted its mistake on its website.
