Apple must pay compensation for slowing down iPhone performance

The ruling partially overturned an earlier ruling by a lower court.

The Seoul High Court ruled that the US tech giant must compensate users for psychological harm caused by violating their right to choose. The decision came after lower courts ruled against more than 62,000 iPhone users in South Korea in lawsuits seeking 200,000 won each from Apple, alleging that the company intentionally slowed down the performance of older models after software updates to force them to buy new ones. However, seven plaintiffs appealed to the appeals court.

The appeals court held that even if the software update was intended to prevent the device from shutting down, it would still limit the performance of the processor (CPU) and other components. Therefore, Apple had a duty to fully explain to buyers whether to install the update, but the company failed to do so. However, the Seoul High Court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that Apple’s software update distributed malicious programs or damaged iPhone devices.

Apple's iPhone scandal, dubbed "batterygate," began in late 2017, when it was alleged that the global tech giant had throttled the performance of some iPhone models to preserve battery life. Apple initially denied intentionally slowing down iPhone batteries, but later said it did so to preserve battery life and insisted the measure was not intended to push users to buy new devices.