Apple agrees to pay up to $500 million to settle iPhone throttling lawsuit in the U.S.

Apple has agreed to a preliminary ruling, which was set last Friday, related to a lawsuit against the company for throttling some iPhone models in the United States.

Reuters has the report today. Apple has agreed to pay upwards of $500 million in the lawsuit against it (of which there were many) related to the iPhone throttling fiasco that ran rampant across 2018. Interestingly, Apple has denied any wrongdoing in the matter, saying that it only agreed to settle because it wants to avoid any prolonged court proceedings.

If this monetary value is agreed upon across the board, that would be equal to about $25 per phone impacted by the throttling. The lawsuit itself covers a range of devices: the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and the iPhone SE. These devices were running iOS 10.2.1.

Consumers contended that their phones’ performance suffered after they installed Apple software updates. They said this misled them into believing their phones were near the end of their lifecycles, requiring replacements or new batteries.

Apple attributed the problems mainly to temperature changes, high usage and other issues, and said its engineers worked quickly and successfully to address them. Analysts sometimes refer to the slowing of iPhones as “throttling.”

The final number has to approved by U.S District Judge Edward Davila out of San Jose, California. The lawyers for those impacted by the throttling issue say the settlement is “fair, reasonable and adequate”. But, what do you think? Is this enough, or should Apple do more in some way or another?