A $5 million lawsuit has been filed against Apple claiming the company is responsible for deliberately sabotaging the iPhone 4S with iOS 9 in order to encourage customers to upgrade to newer models.
The company claimed that the software update would improve performance and security on all devices, but the lawsuit filed Tuesday with a New York district court found that was misleading and it lagged in terms of third-party apps and core functionality. Apple released the new software despite having full knowledge that it would likely cause irreversible issues for smartphone users still holding onto their iPhone 4S.
As a result, iPhone 4S users who upgraded were forced to either use the flawed operating system, as it can’t be downgraded to iOS 8 or 7 due to the way Apple’s iOS updates work, or spend hundreds of dollars on new iPhones that could handle the OS.
The lawsuit was filed by Chaim Lerman and includes over 100 members who have complained of a poor overall experience for the iPhone 4S following the update. The plaintiffs claim that Apple knew of the potential performance issues but still chose to go forward and market the OS as having superior performance, including better security and battery life.
Apple promoted the new OS stating that it was a better alternative than the iOS 8 and would offer a more optimized experience even to customers owning older gadgets like the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. However, tests conducted after its release showed that its performance was worse than the iOS 8 on older devices.
The lawsuit claims that the software update slowed down phones’ performance to a crawl and to the point where people could no longer contently use their devices every day. After installing the iOS 9, apps slowed down, the touchscreen lagged, overall performance suffered, and the iPhone 4S froze or crashed.
Apple is the only smartphone company that continues to upgrade its past devices. But although older phones can run the latest software, some features must be removed in order to make it compatible. This lawsuit argues that the company has the responsibility to protect its customers and provide accurate information when rolling out new software. That’ll be $5 million, please Apple.
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