Apple starts sending iPhone users their share of the $500 million "Batterygate" settlement

Are you old enough to remember "Batterygate?" After some iPhone users complained in 2016 that their handsets were shutting down for no apparent reason, Apple released iOS 10.2.1 in January 2017. But it wasn't until December 2017 that Apple revealed how the update throttled the clock speeds of the CPU cores used by the chipsets found in certain iPhone models. As a result, these phones were running at slower speeds following the update.

The whole "Batterygate" affair started when affected iPhone units with weak batteries could not generate the required energy from the batteries to allow the processor to handle certain complex tasks. As a result, these phones would crash. After iOS 10.2.1 was installed, iPhone users complained that their iPhone units were running slower.

Apple eventually copped to the whole plan, apologized, and cut the price to replace the battery during all of 2018 on certain iPhone models by as much as 63% to $29. Apple also added the Battery Health & Charging page that shows the current capacity of your iPhone battery compared to when it was new. You can get to that page by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple is now sending out payments to those who were affected by the Batterygate throttling. Remember, Apple didn't admit at the time it disseminated iOS 10.2.1 that the update was designed to slow the CPU on affected devices. Apple is paying $92.17 for each successful claim which means that some iPhone users with multiple claims will receive close to $1,000 from the tech giant.

Apple agreed to a hefty $500 million settlement although only $310 million is going to consumers. Yes, it does pay to be an attorney handling cases like this one. And by the way, if you haven't filed a claim with the court yet, that shipped sailed long ago. The deadline was October 6, 2020. Those who did file on time were able to submit a claim for each iPhone model covered by the settlement that each claimant owned. Those models were the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE.