Wired
On the evening of January 25th, Beijing time, it was reported that the Italian consumer association “AltroConsumero” stated on Monday that it had filed a class action lawsuit against Apple in response to the “iPhone battery door” incident.
The so-called “iPhone battery door” incident refers to Apple slowing down the old iPhone through system updates, thereby forcing users to buy new phones. The old iPhone models involved in this incident include iPhones 6, iPhones 6 Plus, iPhones 6S and iPhones 6S Plus.
Altroconsumo said in a statement that the association requested 60 million euros (approximately US$73 million) from Apple on behalf of Italian consumers deceived by this practice. Between 2014 and 2020, the total sales of these older models in Italy were approximately 1 million units.
In this regard, Apple stated in an email that it has never done anything to deliberately shorten the life of Apple products or reduce user experience to promote user upgrades.
Apple has previously admitted that there is indeed a system update that can reduce the frequency of iPhones that use old batteries. But at the same time, said that this is for the good of users and can avoid sudden shutdown caused by excessive battery consumption and performance problems.
In December last year, Euroconsumers, a rights protection organization composed of five European consumer organizations, also filed a class action lawsuit against Apple in Belgium and Spain for the “iPhone battery door” incident, claiming approximately 180 million euros (approximately 217 million US dollars).
Prior to this, Apple reached a settlement agreement with more than 30 states in the United States, and is expected to pay $113 million in compensation. Euroconsumers stated that for European consumers, they only need to be treated the same as American consumers.
Euroconsumers also said today that it plans to file a class action lawsuit against Apple in Portugal in the next few weeks.