In a major blow to consumers all around the world fighting planned obsolescence, South Korean iPhone customers lost a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday that accused the Cupertino-based tech giant of purposefully slowing down the performance of older devices in order to push customers to buy new ones.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled against 9,800 iPhone users in South Korea, who had taken Apple to court. The court ruled against the petition without providing detailed grounds, and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the legal fees by the court’s proceedings.
The long-running “batterygate” scandal began in 2017, when claims surfaced that the global tech giant intentionally slowed the performance of some iPhone models in order to save device battery life.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2018, claims that Apple not only but also lied about the fact that iPhone batteries struggle to run the latest iOS software. Rather than recalling the devices or providing replacement batteries, Apple recommended consumers to download the most recent software upgrades.
The plaintiffs claimed that their iPhones malfunctioned and slowed down as a result of the upgrades. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 devices were the most vulnerable devices.
Apple first denied intentionally slowing down iPhones because of batteries. However, the business later stated that it did so to save battery life and that the step was not intended to encourage consumers to purchase new ones.
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