A British consumer advocate, Justin Gutmann, on Thursday launched a £ 768 million (more than C $ 1.2 billion) lawsuit against Apple over older iPhone models that the manufacturer admitted had spontaneously slowed down.
This case he has already had heavy compensation in some countries.
Before the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London, the defender accused the tech giant of reducing, with the help of updates, the performance of older iPhone models to avoid recall and expensive repair of devices. The goal is to get compensation for up to 25 million users in the UK.
In an abuse of its dominant market position, Apple has misled its customersleading some people to update, to pay for a replacement batteryor even buy a new model, Justin Gutmann was denounced in a press release sent to the AFP.
Sorry and millions of repairs
Apple apologized in December 2017, acknowledging that it deliberately slowed down some of its devices to compensate for their battery aging and prevent them from turning off unexpectedly, however denying any attempt at planned obsolescence.
Since then, the company has faced legal proceedings in several countries, including agreeing to pay in 2020 to the United States up to 500 million US dollars (652 million Canadian dollars) to the owners of older models, then of two years of litigation. Apple paid an additional US $ 113 million (C $ 147 million) to abort a lawsuit filed in several US states.
In France, the group was fined 25 million euros (34 million Canadian dollars) in the same year for failing to warn that updates could slow down old smartphones.
We have not done anything, and will never do anything, to intentionally shorten the life of an Apple product or degrade the user experience further. the purchase of new products, the manufacturer responded on Thursday in a statement sent to AFP.
Our goal has always been to create products our customers want, and making iPhones as long as possible is an important part of that.it is controversial.
France Media Agency
Source: Radio-Canada
