Apple’s iPhone battery controversy has taken a life of its own. The company’s failure to properly explain why an iOS update was going to reduce the performance of iPhones with older batteries led to conspiracy theories and a lot of bad press for Apple. Government units in multiple countries have launched an investigation into the matter and South Korea has joined the list as well.
Apple released a software update last year which throttled the processor on iPhones with older batteries and slowed them down. This was done to prevent accidental shutdowns as the degraded batteries would find it difficult to manage a surge in processing power.
The company may have had the best of intentions in mind but some people thought it was merely slowing down iPhones just so that its customers would decide to buy new ones. That’s the impression that most people got anyway.
Apple has apologized profusely for batterygate and now offers $29 battery replacements for affected devices. It’s even going to release an iOS update which will enable users to disable this behavior.
That’s not going to be enough, it seems. Dozens of lawsuits have already been filed against Apple for this while the company is also facing probes for slowed down iPhones in China, Italy, and now South Korea as well.
Seoul’s Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty has filed a complaint against Apple claiming that the company’s intention behind this was to influence customers to upgrade their handsets sooner than they might have planned to. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office has now launched an investigation into the matter.
Filed in . Read more about iPhone. Source: koreaherald