Apple will be paying a pretty penny for throttling its customers’ products without consent. French watchdog DGCCRF (Directorate General for Competition, Consumption, and the Suppression of Fraud) has fined the company 25 million Euros for sending out iOS updates that slowed down older iPhones.
This all began back in 2017, when Apple released iOS 10.2.1 and 11.2. These updates included a power management feature that would cap the performance of iPhones with older lithium-ion batteries. The excuse was that aged batteries could no longer supply normal peak current demands, so throttling was required to prevent devices from shutting down unexpectedly.
While the reasoning was sound, iPhone customers didn’t see it that way and blamed Apple for robbing their devices’ performance. DGCCRF later got involved and determined that this was a “misleading commercial practice,” one that forced consumers to change their batteries or buy a new phone.
In addition to the 25 million Euro fine, Apple has been asked to publish a press release on its website regarding this fiasco. The statement has to be kept online for at least one month.