Apple Settles Dispute Over FaceTime Issue By Paying $18 Million To Affected iPhone 4 Users

Apple has officially signed an agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit in California which accused the company of breaking FaceTime on the iPhones 4 series intentionally. According to the Law360 report, the company has settled the case by paying $18 million. With this settlement amount, 90 percent of the class action member will receive compensation for their loss.

The compensation will be delivered to the users via mail or electronic transfer. The report also suggests that 3.6 million iPhone 4, 4S devices were affected by the update. Each user will receive a compensation of around $3, which is very less. The case trial was scheduled for this month.

"The class is defined as all California owners of non-jailbroken Apple iPhone 4 or 4S devices with iOS 6 or earlier operating systems," according to the report.
Moreover, 30 percent of the settlement amount will go to the class counsel, and the two complainants Christina Grace and Ken Potter, which raised concerns over the FaceTime issue, will receive $7,500 each.

The class-action lawsuit was filed against Apple in California for intentionally breaking FaceTime on the iPhone with older versions of iOS. To cut down the server cost, Apple developed a peer-to-peer protocol which was introduced with iOS 7 back in 2013. Apple iPhone 4 users were unable to upgrade to iOS7 and the company removed the FaceTime from the previous version.

"That decision left iPhone users stuck with a choice between a sluggish device or losing the ability to use FaceTime," the report explains.

The company fought the case until January. However, later in February, it decided to settle the case. At the beginning of April, Apple witnessed a small victory, while a similar lawsuit was dismissed by federal court in Florida.

It's not the first time Apple is paying for settling down a lawsuit. Back in March, the company agreed to pay $500 million for intentionally slowing down the performance of the older iPhones to increase the sale of the new ones.

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