Apple
Inc. apologized to customers for software changes that reduced the
performance of older iPhones in order to extend their battery life,
while saying the company hadn’t intentionally set out to shorten the
life of the products.
Aging
batteries in the older iPhones contributed to the performance issues
after a software update about a year ago, the Cupertino,
California-based company said in a statement
posted online. In response to customer complaints, Apple said it’s
cutting the price of replacement batteries for iPhones no longer covered
by warranty.
Apple has been confronted by a slew of lawsuits over the software tweak, which had led to noticeably slower performance in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s models. Some accused
Apple of intentionally slowing older iPhones to encourage consumers to
replace them with newer, more expensive models. The retail price of the
iPhone X, which went on sale last month, starts at $999.
“We
have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the
life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive
customer upgrades,” Apple said in the statement. “We’ve always wanted
our customers to be able to use their iPhones as long as possible.”
Apple
said it introduced the software in late 2016 because phones with older
batteries were prone to shutting down when more energy intensive
processes created greater power demands than the batteries could handle.
That fix reduced the demand on the batteries, and limited the shutdown
issue, but Apple said in recent months users found the slowness of their
iPhones had become intolerable.
Anyone
with an iPhone 6 or later will be able to replace the battery for $29
instead of the current $79 beginning in late January, Apple said. The
company also will roll out an update to the iOS operating system that
lets users see whether their battery’s condition is affecting
performance.
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