Apple to pay Minnesota $2M over alleged 'throttling' of iPhone speeds in 2016

(FOX 9) - Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday that his office has reached a settlement with Apple over the company’s alleged “throttling” of consumers’ iPhone speeds in 2016 to address unexpected shutdowns in some iPhones. 

Ellison’s office was part of a bipartisan coalition of more than 30 attorneys general that opened a consumer-fraud investigation into Apple, according to a news release. Under the settlement agreement, Apple will pay $133 million to coalition of states that investigated the company, including $2 million to Minnesota. 

Based on the multistate investigation, the attorneys general allege Apple discovered battery issues were leading to unexpected shutdowns in iPhones, which the company did not disclose to consumers, according to the news release. The company then pushed out a software update in December 2016 that reduced iPhone performance in an effort to keep the phones from unexpectedly shutting down. 

The attorneys general also allege that as a result of concealing the battery issues and decision to throttle the performance of consumers’ iPhones, Apple profited from selling additional iPhones to consumers whose phone performance the company had slowed. 
 
Ellison’s office says more than 2 million consumers in Minnesota were affected by Apple’s reduction in the performance of their iPhones. 

In addition to the monetary payment, the settlement agreement also requires Apple to provide truthful information to consumers about iPhone battery health, performance and power management. The information must be available on its website, in update installation notes and in the iPhone user interface itself.