Gary Sims / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Apple will begin payouts of ~$500 million to users affected by “batterygate.”
- This years-long process resulted from Apple intentionally throttling iPhone processors for the sake of long-term battery health.
- It is too late for you to file a claim, but those who did in 2020 should receive about $65.
If you can remember as far back as 2017, you’ll know about “batterygate.” Essentially, benchmarking gurus at Geekbench discovered that Apple was intentionally throttling performance on iPhones in order to help preserve battery longevity and prevent various problems from popping up, which sometimes included spontaneous shutdowns. It had been speculated for years that Apple did this, but Geekbench’s report was the first time objective evidence put Apple on the spot.
In response, the company issued a statement tacitly admitting to the practice. However, no admission could lessen the furor, and it wasn’t long before Apple had numerous class-action lawsuits. One of those suits is now, in 2023, finally coming to a close.
According to The Mercury News, the judge presiding over this particular case has denied two appeals from claimants who, interestingly enough, wanted Apple to see a heftier fine. With these two appeals closed, the next step is the one you’ve been waiting nearly six years for: a check in the mail.
The average payout looks to be around $65 per claimant, which will come from a ~$500 million pool supplied by Apple. As usual, this class-action lawsuit means that Apple does not need to admit any wrongdoing with batterygate. It’s essentially paying half a billion dollars to not need to legally admit it did what we all know it did.
Unfortunately, if you feel you were a victim of batterygate, your time for a payout has come and gone. The closing date for this particular lawsuit was in October 2020, so if you didn’t get in back then, you’re not going to get that check. If you did get your claim in, though, you should see your cash soon. There’s no firm deadline yet, but we’d expect things to wrap up over the next few months.
