Apple has reportedly agreed to a payout of USD18mil to settle a class action lawsuit that claims the company had intentionally ‘broke’ FaceTime on devices running on iOS 6 and older.
Back in February, Apple was hit with the lawsuit in its native California where 3.6 million devices were said to have been affected by the issue. The story goes that Apple were found to have infringed on peer-to-peer tech patented by VirnetX when developing the back-end for their FaceTime app.
Image credit: WCCF Tech
As a solution, Apple then had to develop its own peer-to-peer tech or risk blowing budget by relying on a third-party relay method for FaceTime to work. When Apple finally did develop their P2P standard, it was set to debut for the iOS 7 update – but the issue with iOS 7 itself was that it was too ‘heavy’ for older iPhones like the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S to handle, and these devices would experience slowdown, system crashes, and erratic behaviour – this resulted to many opting to stick to iOS 6.
The next problem, is that since people are sticking to iOS 6, they would continue to use the old FaceTime software, meaning Apple had to continue paying for the third party relay method – so Apple figured they could just break FaceTime for iOS 6 users, forcing them to update their devices, or to get a new one.
iOS 7
Image credit: The Verge
This accusation was proven to be true when internal emails were found admitting to ‘breaking’ FaceTime on iOS 6 devices, to force a users’ to move update.
The class action lawsuit will see Apple part with USD18mil, where by each class member will receive USD3; while the original two named plaintiffs are to receive USD7,500 each. For shame Apple, for shame.
