On Wednesday, December 20, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple slows some older iPhones because of Flagging Batteries." Later that day Business Insider couldn't resist in pushing the conspiracy side of the story by stating that "Apple on Wednesday admitted it had been secretly throttling the performance of older iPhones. The admission outraged even some of the company's biggest fans, and that customers have good reason to be distrustful of the company and to suspect its motives." There's nothing like a good conspiracy theory to get the Android wolves howling. Then yesterday CNN's byline on this story read: "Yes, Apple is slowing your old iPhone. But it's not a conspiracy." Welcome to the World Wild Web of multi-level contradictions.

When a story is this hot, you know what's coming around the corner: a class action lawsuit with greedy lawyers in the wings.

On cue, a lawsuit was filed yesterday in central California by Colin M. Jones from the Wilshire Law Firm on behalf of Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas for Breach of Implied Contract and Trespass to Chattel.

Nature of the Lawsuit

"Plaintiffs and Class Members have owned iPhone 7, and iPhone 7s, or have owned older iPhone models for the past years. Plaintiffs and Class Members have notice that their older iPhone models slows down when new models come out.

On December 20, 2017, Defendant admitted to purposefully slowing down older iPhone models. Plaintiffs and Class Members never consented to allow Defendants to slow their iPhones.

As a result of Defendant's wrongful actions, Plaintiffs and Class Members had their phone slowed down, and thereby it interfered with Plaintiffs' and Class Members' use or possession of their iPhones, Plaintiffs and Class Members have otherwise suffered damages.

Substantive Allegations

Plaintiffs and Class Members have used Apple iPhones for a number of years.

• Defendant alleges that its battery may retain up to 80 percent of their original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles.

• Defendant alleges that it slows down iPhone processors when the battery is wearing out.

• Defendant never requested consent or did Plaintiffs at any time give consent for Defendant to slow down their iPhones.

• Plaintiffs and Class Members were never given the option to bargain or choose whether they preferred to have their iPhones slower than normal.

• Plaintiffs and Class Members suffered interferences to their iPhone usage due to the intentional slowdowns caused by Defendant.

Defendant's wrongful actions directly and proximately caused the interference and loss of value to Plaintiffs and Class Members' iPhones causing them to suffer, and continue to suffer, economic damages and other harm for which they are entitled to compensation, including:

a. Replacement of old phone;

b. Loss of use;

c. Loss of value;

d. Purchase of new batteries;

e. Ascertainable losses in the form of deprivation of the value of their iPhone;

f. Overpayments to Defendant for iPhones in that a portion of the price paid for such iPhone by Plaintiffs and Class Members to Defendant was for Defendant to purposefully not interfere with the usage of their iPhones, which Defendant and its affiliates purposefully interfered in order to slow down its performance and, as a result, Plaintiffs and Class Members did not receive what they paid for and were overcharged by Defendant.  

For further details of the charges against Apple, review the full lawsuit filing below.

Class Action Lawsuit against Apple Inc by Jack Purcher on Scribd

A Second Class Action Filed

The Chicago Sun Times reported on a second class action being filed late yesterday. The Times notes that " A day after Apple acknowledged that their software updates slow down older iPhone models, five customers have filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago against the tech giant for what they’re calling 'deceptive, immoral and unethical' practices that violate consumer protection laws.

The suit was filed Thursday by two Illinoisans along with Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina residents, who had a range of models from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 7.

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