Technology company Apple, creator of the iPhone, faced some serious criticism coupled with legal investigation because of the company deliberately slowing down their phones. They have been threatened with legal action in France, Italy, and more recently, South Korea.
Many may remember Apple admitting that they have been deliberately slowing down the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 via updates to their iOS. The company's reason was that they were protecting the phone from random shutdowns caused by old batteries that cannot provide enough power for a full-speed central processing unit (CPU).
As a result, the company thought that the best solution to the battery problems was to slowdown the CPU, as demonstrated by their admission and the multiple updates delivered on the older phones.
What Apple did in many international entities' points of view was force their older iPhones to become obsolete. South Korea is now one of the countries that launched an investigation regarding the matter.
The action came after members of Seoul's Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty accused Apple of slowing down their phones to force their customers to upgrade into the newer Apple models. The criminal complaint was filed last Thursday.
Apple recognized that this "early-upgrade conspiracy" has already spread and is a go-to argument for people or groups that file cases against the company. However, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook was firm in stating that there is no such conspiracy.
"We deeply apologize for anyone who thinks we had some other kind of motivation," said Cook. They also posted an open letter and reduced the battery replacement fee to $29.
The CEO implied that the biggest problem regarding the upgrade was the lack of transparency. Cook claimed the Apple "did say what [the update] was" when they put it out, but he did not "think a lot of people were paying attention."
