Apple has been compelled to add a statement regarding the outcome of a ‘planned obsolescence’ lawsuit to its homepage in Italy. The court ruled showed that Apple did not provide adequate information about the impact of performing the iOS 10.2.1 update, which introduced the infamous iPhone performance throttling for degraded batteries.

Apple lost a lawsuit at the end of 2018 in Italy, where a court said that Apple had not appropriately disclosed the changes to device performance in the iOS 10.2.1 update. Remember that Apple originally instated the performance throttling algorithms without any disclosure in release notes.

This meant that most people were unaware of the change in behavior until months later when it became a global fiasco. Apple’s effective rollout of the discounted battery replacement program and Battery Health options in Settings were not disputed in the lawsuit. It was just that these measures were instated too late, only after Apple had been ‘caught’.

Apple is set to pay a multi-million euro fine and has been forced to add an advisory statement on its website to explain to customers what had happened. The addition was spotted by @setteBIT.

The full statement reads (via Google Translate):

Apple Inc, Apple Distribution International, Apple Italy and Apple Retail Italy have led consumers in the possession of iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus to install the iOS 10 operating system and subsequent updates, without providing adequate information about the impact of that choice on the performance of the smartphones and without offering (if not to a limited extent or too late) any means of restoring the original functionality of the appliances in the event of a proven decrease in performance following the update (such as downgrading or battery replacement at a reasonable cost). This practice was deemed incorrect, pursuant to articles 20, 21, 22, and 24of the Legislative Decree no. 206/2005 by the Italian Competition Authority.

You have to scroll to find the notice at the very bottom of the apple.com/it page, but at least the font is larger and bolder than the normal fine print.

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