Apple's troubles with authorities concerning the iPhone slowdown controversy continue. It appears the U.S. Justice Department has also begun investigating the Cupertino company for its deliberate slowing-down of older iPhone models when the battery reaches a certain threshold of usage.
Both the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are presently looking into whether Apple has violated security laws with its software updates that secretly enabled iPhone slowdown.
Early Stages
Bloomberg reports the government has requested information from the company, and the inquiry is still in early stages, sources cautioned, meaning that it's too soon to conclude if any enforcement will follow. For now, the investigators are merely looking at Apple's public statements in relation to the controversy, according to the sources.
Apple upset consumers when it confirmed that it was indeed slowing down older iPhones, and there are now a bunch of lawsuits against Apple over the slowdown controversy.
iPhone Slowdown Fiasco
Apple confessed several weeks ago that a software update launched in early 2017 slowed down older iPhones as a away for them to avoid suddenly shutting down. Problem is, when it rolled out the said update, it didn't fully disclose that the slowdown would occur. This past December, Apple apologized for being all hush-hush about it. The company has since received significant backlash over the lack of transparency in how this information was disclosed to customers.
Though it affects consumers primarily, U.S. investigators think the company may have also mislead investors about the performance of its older flagships.
The slowdown occurs when the batteries of older iPhones reach a certain degradation period. Users first discovered that Apple was doing something to deliberately slow down older phones when their clunky iPhone started performing better, or like new, when they put in a new battery.
As part of its solution, Apple cut $50 off the price of an iPhone battery replacement, making it just $29.
Most recently, CEO Tim Cook promised that a future update would allow users to turn off throttling altogether, but doing so would put the phone at greater risk of randomly rebooting, according to Apple. The throttling affects iPhone 7 and older models, but not the newer iPhone 8 and iPhone X flagships, the company has confirmed.
Thoughts about the whole iPhone slowdown controversy? Do you think Apple should have just come clean from the get-go? As always, if you have anything to share, feel free to sound them off in the comments section below!
