Apple will pay $ 18 million in lawsuit over «breaking» FaceTime on old iPhones

FaceTime

Apple officially signed an agreement to resolve a class action lawsuit in which the company was accused of «breaking» the FaceTime on iPhones running iOS 6. According to the information, published by Law360, the agreement was closed on $ 18 million.

The amount was calculated based on more than 3.6 million devices who were (allegedly) affected by the problem; 90% of the class action members will receive the exact compensation… $ 3 (yes, just over R $ 15). In addition, 30% of the total amount will be directed to the class council, while the original two plaintiffs will receive $ 7,500 each.

It is worth remembering that, a few days ago, Apple got rid of a similar process in the American state of Florida; however, a group of users in California was still waiting for the deal because they thought the measures taken by the company in 2013 (with the launch of iOS 7) intentionally hurt consumers to the benefit of internal company issues.

The case

As we explained in past instances, the lawsuit claims that Apple has forced iPhone owners to upgrade their devices to iOS 7 (or, in some cases, purchase a new device compatible with the operating system) to avoid “unnecessary” costs with servers and possible patent infringements.

Until 2010, Apple used two different methods in the operation of FaceTime: one that created a direct connection between two iPhones and another that sent data from servers of companies such as Akamai Technologies.

The first method, however, was accused of infringing VirnetX (another imbroglio that was also solved this year), causing the company to migrate to the second. Within a year, Apple was paying Akamai $ 50 million, giving it sufficient reason to develop a third technology, which launched on iOS 7.

In addition to forcing FaceTime to crash on iOS 6 devices (which would no longer work using the old methods), users claimed that the company saved money at their expense, since it would no longer need to support these users.

via 9to5Mac