Apple’s $500 Million iPhone Settlement, Briefly Explained

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow2851:

Apple's $500 million iPhone settlement, briefly explained:

Apple has agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit over its phone batteries - and you might get a (small) cut of that.

According to Reuters, Apple will pay qualified iPhone owners $25 per phone, although this amount could be adjusted depending on how many claims are filed. (Think of that Equifax settlement that was supposed to give us $125 each, except so many people submitted a claim that it was significantly reduced). Nevertheless, the minimum amount that Apple must pay out will be at least $310 million.

The settlement will cover models 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and SE devices that installed the software updates before December 21, 2017. If that's you, don't spend that $25 yet - the settlement still has to be approved by a federal judge.

The settlement puts a punctuation mark on what became known as "Batterygate." In 2016, iPhone 6s owners began complaining that their phones suddenly shut down despite having plenty of battery life remaining. Apple eventually responded by admitting that a "very small number" of the iPhone 6s had an issue with their batteries and offering free battery replacements to those models. Then, owners of other iPhone models claimed that their devices were having similar shutdown issues and that the problem was more widespread than Apple would admit. Apple responded with a software update that reduced the number of shutdowns significantly.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.