Yeah, About that iPhone Conspiracy Theory

Now that Apple has been forced to reveal that it was actually slowing down old phones with software updates, the lawsuits have begun to pop up.

It appears that hiding this fact from customers, who felt compelled to spend 10 times as much on a new phone as they would on a battery replacement, has made some people angry:

Since news broke that Apple deliberately slows down the processor speed of iPhones as they age, the company has now been sued three times in various federal courts nationwide.

These proposed class-action lawsuits allege largely the same thing: that over time certain iPhones exhibited lower performance and that Apple fraudulently concealed this fact from owners. If those customers went to an Apple Store to investigate, they were encouraged to simply buy a new iPhone.

"Had Plaintiffs been informed by Apple or its technical/customer service support staff that a battery replacement would have improved the performance of the above devices, they would have opted to replace the batteries instead of purchasing new phones," one of the lawsuits, Abdulla et al v. Apple, which was filed Thursday in federal court in Chicago, alleges.

This is a not particularly surprising consequence of living in Cupertino's walled garden.