Seven years after it began, the iPhone “Batterygate” saga is finally entering its final chapter.
MacRumors has heard from readers who have finally received their payments from the class-action lawsuit for the princely sum of $92.17 — slightly higher than the $65 promised last year, and far more than the “$25 per eligible device” estimated back in 2020.
Nice thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning — especially after 3.5 years of waiting! https://t.co/efqqgca8NG pic.twitter.com/hqfBV25M6sJanuary 6, 2024
That’s the nature of class-action lawsuits: The total is divided between the number of claimants after legal fees are subtracted, so clearly fewer people took up the offer than originally expected.
For those keenly keeping an eye on things, the sudden arrival of a payment won’t be a surprise. The website set up for the settlement was updated last month to note that payments were imminent, but it’s good that the words have been backed up with cold, hard cash.
It’s been a long time coming. The story started back in 2017 when owners of older handsets (usually the iPhone 6 or 6S) noticed degraded performance on iOS 10. Apple would later explain that the phenomenon was real, but deliberate: a design decision to prevent handsets from randomly shutting down due to battery degradation, rather than forcing an upgrade to a newer model.
But as this wasn’t signposted in any patch notes and impossible to disable, class action lawsuits followed, and Apple duly settled in 2020. While the company continued to deny any wrongdoing, the settlement was agreed to “avoid burdensome and costly litigation”.
Payments were promised to claimants with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus and/or original iPhone SE running iOS 10.2.1 or later, and extended to iPhone 7 or 7 Plus users with iOS 11.2 or later before December 21, 2017. If you had more than one affected device, you could claim multiple times.
Suffice to say, if you’ve only just realized that this makes you eligible for a payout, you’re a few years too late to do anything about it now. The cut-off for submitting a claim unfortunately passed back in October 2020.
