UK lawsuit seeks damages of up to £1.6bn for iPhone ‘batterygate’ throttling

Apple is continuing to reap the repercussions of its late-2016 ‘batterygate’ saga, when the iPhone maker admitted it purposely throttled the performance of older devices, with a UK lawsuit seeking damages of up to £1.6 billion to be divided between up to 25 million iPhone users.

Affected models include the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus.

The ‘Batterygate’ saga saw Apple deliberately slow the performance of older iPhone models in a move the company said was to prevent performance issues.

The iPhone maker faced a major backlash, offering reduced price battery services for users with performance problems, refunds to customers who paid for full-price battery repairs, and a software update that offered users the option to turn off performance throttling as well as showing the health of the device’s battery through the form of a percentage.

In 2020, Apple agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle a similar class action lawsuit in the United States.