A French regulator has hit Apple with a €25 million (US$27.4 million) fine over its controversial software update that slowed down older iPhones. The General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control’s (DGCCRF) announcement notes that Apple has agreed to pay the fine and will display a press release on its website for one month. The fine is the result of a probe that began at the beginning of 2018.
The controversy first emerged at the end of 2017 when users spotted that the latest version of iOS was throttling the performance of older iPhones. After being found out, Apple admitted that the “feature” was first introduced with iOS 10.2.1, and was designed to prevent unexpected shutdowns as old batteries degraded over time.
The problem was that it never communicated this to its customers who didn’t realize that they could reverse the throttling by replacing their battery and didn’t have to buy an entirely new device. There was also no option to roll back their phones to a previous version of iOS or disable the feature.
The DGCCRF took issue with the fact that “iPhone owners were not informed that the updates of the iOS operating system (10.2.1 and 11.2) that they installed were likely to lead to a slower operation of their device.” As a result, the French authorities concluded that Apple was guilty of “misleading commercial practice by omission.”
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