Why Apple’s ‘Batterygate’ Controversy Won’t Repeat

It was December 2017 and Apple Inc.’s recently released iPhone X was delighting a small cohort of owners with its upgraded technology and blazing performance. At the same time, a different cohort of iPhone owners was dismayed by the slowing performance of their older models. The culprit, it turned out, was Apple: It had sent a software update that slowed the performance of older iPhones as their batteries aged, and failed to notify their users. Late last week, the company reached a class-action settlement that could pay as much as $500 million to iPhone owners to resolve what was nicknamed “Batterygate.”

Apple admits no wrongdoing and has long held that that episode was a misunderstanding. Many consumer advocates thought otherwise, going so far as to suggest that Apple was trying to nudge consumers into buying new iPhones. Whatever the truth, it’s unlikely that Apple will ever again install a secret, performance-reducing feature in a product. But it’s not the multimillion-dollar lawsuit that will keep them from doing it. Instead, Apple’s growing business selling used iPhone gives the company a powerful financial incentive to promote and defend the handset’s durability.