State attorney general announces $113 million performance throttling settlement against Apple

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KION-TV) -- The Santa Cruz County District Attorney, alongside California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and other district attorneys, has announced a $113 million settlement against Apple.

The settlement comes after Apple was accused of making misrepresentations about iPhone batteries. It also addresses concerns over the phone's performance being "throttled," or purposely reduced in performance, preventing the shutdown of phones with aging batteries.

“Apple withheld information about their batteries that slowed down iPhone performance, all while passing it off as an update,” said Attorney General Becerra. “This type of behavior hurts the pockets of consumers and limits their ability to make informed purchases. Today’s settlement ensures consumers will have access to the information they need to make a well-informed decision when purchasing and using Apple products.”

The state will receive $24.6 million of the total settlement. The settlement also has terms which Becerra says will protect Californians' ability to make informed purchasing decisions.

Santa Cruz District Attorney Jeff Rosell was also named as being one of the prosecuting agencies on this settlement.

“Our office works diligently to protect the people of Santa Cruz County, even against the largest corporations in the world," Rosell says. "We are committed to protecting the rights of all California consumers, especially those in Santa Cruz County, and work collaboratively with other agencies to achieve this goal.”

Here's the other terms of this settlement with Apple:

• Apple must maintain a prominent and accessible webpage on their website that provides clear and easily visible information to consumers about how the company manages battery performance issues, such as by throttling iPhone processing performance;
• The company must also provide a clear and easily visible notice to all affected consumers when an iOS update materially affects iPhone processing performance;
•  The settlement also includes providing information in the iPhone settings menu about the consumer's battery performance and maximum capacity as well as a notice of when a battery has experienced performance degradation of a significance that the consumer should service the battery; and
• Apple must train its consumer-facing staff regarding compliance with this injunction and the information that this injunction requires Apple to provide to consumers.