Remember when Apple throttled iPhones in order to prevent crashes caused by worn-down batteries? We called it Batterygate, and the French government is calling it what it is: criminal.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Suppression of Fraud (DGCCRF), a French consumer watchdog part of the Ministry of Economy, began investigating Apple in 2018 under the country’s so-called planned obsolescence law, at the request of the association Halte à l’obsolescence programmée (HOP). HOP alleged that by deliberately slowing down iPhones—and not telling consumers—that Apple was incentivizing users to upgrade before they needed to. After a year-long investigation, the DGCCRF has fined Apple €25 million (about $27.4 million). Apple has agreed to pay the fine in order to end the matter instead of going to court. It will also display a press release as a banner on its French website for one year.
Apple claimed that their throttling was not an attempt to force upgrades; instead, it was done to prolong the life of the phones. They offered customers discounted battery replacements for the rest of 2018, but between long wait times and over a year of silence, it didn’t stop hordes of lawsuits from coming their way. (Maybe if they hadn’t been so secretive about the throttling, or been so hostile to user-replaceable batteries, or hadn’t designed such a faulty product in the first place…we might have been more sympathetic.)
This is the first victory under France’s planned obsolescence law, and it’s a big one. While $27.4 million may seem like couch-cushion change to a company like Apple, this is a big neon sign to electronics manufacturers that planned obsolescence will not be tolerated—meaning consumers (and the environment) may get their big break after all.
6 Comments
All Macbook’s working at about 20% of full performance without a battery. How to fix it?
axet - Reply
Hilarious. They got what they deserved! I was also an owner of the Samsung Note 5 (yes, remember that dinosaur?), it was the Note BEFORE the exploding note 7, and they skipped the 6 so that the S series would line up nicely. Thus my Note 5 was from the era of the S6 releases. However, after updating to the latest android over the years, the battery life slowly declined to MAYBE 1/4th of a 12 hour day. Like 3-4 hours with the screen on…… I knew it was not like that in the beginning. Thankfully ODIN and android sdk tools are some things I’ve learned to understand, and one day I flashed the original android build that shipped with the device, prior to all of samsung’s bloating. Well, the battery returned to about 6-8 hours of screen life as I (sort of) remember it being. For non techies, this is what we call CPU throttle, and basically the later versions of android (in high performance mode - aka full screen resolution QuadHD) upped the CPU clock to way higher than it needed to be for that battery. RIP
Nicholas Narverud - Reply
All good and well fining Apple but what about their customers? Who gets the £25 million?
Are the customers getting an apology? or indeed an amount to say sorry for the lying and cheating… Sorry your phone was running so slow….
What a load of *******
As for replacement batteries… thats a total laugh!
Apple have the batteries produced for much less than they offer to the customer for a discounted price of £25. They dont recompense the customer for the time or fuel of the round journey to the local Apple store either.
So in truth Apple dont give a **** about their customers! As long as they dont loose out.
howard - Reply
Sorry your phone is slow and changing the battery didn’t help once the new software downgrade upgrade went in, here’s a nice new shiny phone, only cost you $1500 for our causing you trouble. See you next year when the new OS semi-bricks the phone you just got to replace the one we semi-bricked before…
Remember when you bought an apple product and expected it to last and run a decade? That’s why I made the switch from those other guys… Silly me, eh?
lassenforge - Reply
25 million euros out of a trillion dollar company. I doubt they're phased
ironman0002005 - Reply