According to CCTV Finance, the Seoul High Court in South Korea recently made a second instance judgment on a lawsuit filed by seven South Korean iPhone users against Apple Korea for damages. The court ruled that Apple Korea had infringed on the iPhone users' right to choose and caused mental damage to the users, and compensated each plaintiff with 70000 Korean won (approximately 385 yuan) in damages.
The plaintiff claims that during the second half of 2017, Apple Korea intentionally reduced the performance of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 series phones during system software updates, causing users to experience issues such as decreased phone running speed, application crashes, and program delays. The Seoul High Court stated in its ruling on the 6th that, Based on the relevant situation, it is difficult to determine whether the performance degradation caused by related updates is permanent, irreversible, or mechanically damaged. However, as an operator, Apple Korea releases updates to provide users with a better user experience. There is a clear information imbalance and asymmetry between Apple Korea and consumers regarding the impact of system updates, and Apple Korea has an obligation to inform users Let users choose whether to install the update or not based on the impact of the update.
Regarding this, Apple Korea stated that the company did not participate in the development and release of system update software, and it is difficult to believe that it has an obligation to inform users of the relevant situation, so it does not acknowledge liability for damages.
Korean consumers filed their first lawsuit against Apple Korea in 2018. In the first instance of the case, including the merger case, more than 62000 people filed lawsuits against Apple Korea. However, the first instance court held that Apple's system updates would not cause a permanent decline in iPhone performance, and that the problematic performance adjustment function was not intended to reduce phone performance, but to improve user experience. Therefore, the plaintiff was ruled against. Seven plaintiffs in the first instance appealed against the judgment and obtained partial victory in the second instance.
It is worth noting that in China, many consumers have also reported significant performance degradation of their iPhones after upgrading the system. For example, the opening speed of the application slows down, the operation lags, and even crashes. Some netizens have reported that they have encountered similar situations while using the iPhone and have provided feedback to Apple officials. Apple's solution is to go to local branches for testing. Some netizens also said, "I haven't been updating because I'm worried about performance degradation."
In addition, the newly released iPhone 15 series from Apple this year has seen multiple price reductions across various channels, attracting attention from netizens. On September 22nd, Apple's iPhone 15 series phones made their debut, and on the same day, their standard version and 15 Plus were broken. Since the two weeks of after-sales service, third-party channel prices for multiple models of the iPhone 15 series have been continuously declining. In October, the prices of the entire range of iPhone 15 series on e-commerce platforms experienced a decline. Taking the iPhone 15 Plus as an example, at the official flagship store of China Mobile, combined with subsidies and coupons, the price has been directly reduced by 600 yuan; The iPhone 15 Pro Max is officially priced at 9999 yuan by Apple, and after receiving a billion yuan subsidy on the Taobao platform, it is priced at 9098 yuan. Price reductions and subsidies are mostly concentrated on fixed specification models, such as the Plus version and the Blue Titanium Metal Pro and Pro Max versions, while some colors and storage specifications are still out of stock.
The iPhone 15, which has experienced multiple rounds of price drops, has shown strong sales growth and dominates the top three on JD's mobile phone gold list. It is reported that during the Double 12 period, the price of iPhone 15 series will once again plummet, and JD Apple's self operated store will reduce the price of iPhone 15 series by 800 yuan.
However, according to multiple media reports, many netizens who received the new iPhone 15 Pro also complained about poor heat dissipation and severe heat generation. The iPhone 15 series phones continue to have problems, and the heating problem of the Apple iPhone 15 Pro has not stopped yet. Many users have also reported that the speaker of the iPhone 15 series model has a broken sound problem. In the Reddit community, multiple iPhone 15 model users have posted comments and feedback, stating that after increasing the volume, the audio will experience distortion and sound damage, with the earpiece speaker experiencing the most obvious sound damage.