(LEAD) Apple-battery lawsuit
(LEAD) South Korean iPhone users lose 'batterygate' lawsuit
(ATTN: UPDATES with more info in paras 4-5, 7)
By Kim Han-joo
SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Yonhpa) -- Thousands of South Korean iPhone users lost Thursday in a lawsuit seeking compensation from Apple Inc. over allegations that the company purposely slowed the performance of older models to compel users to buy new ones.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled against some 9,800 iPhone owners without giving specific reasons for its verdict. The court also ordered the plaintiffs to pay for their legal expenses.
The long-running "batterygate" dates back to 2017, when allegations arose that the global tech giant artificially hampered the performance of selected iPhone models to preserve device battery life.
The claim -- filed in 2018 against Apple and its South Korean unit, Apple Korea -- alleges that they hid iPhone batteries may struggle to run the latest iOS software.
Instead of recalling products or offering replacement batteries, the company instead advised users to download the latest software updates, according to the claim.
The plaintiffs argued that their iPhone handsets suffered a malfunction following their updates. The affected handsets are known to be iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 models.
A number of similar suits were filed by more than 62,000 local customers in total, seeking a combined 12.7 billion won (US$10.4 million). Each iPhone user sought the amount of 200,000 won.
Apple had first denied purposely slowing down iPhone batteries. But the company later announced it did so to preserve battery life and argued that the measure was not aimed at getting users to buy new ones.
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