Apple to send out settlement payment to iPhone users soon

Three years ago, Apple agreed to shell out some paper to owners of certain older iPhones. The time to collect is coming up soon.

Per the Mercury News, settlement payments to claimants of the class-action lawsuit against Apple for its "Batterygate" controversy should start going out in the near future. The final obstacle, which came in the form of two iPhone owners objecting to the settlement, was cleared when their appeal was tossed out by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week. That means it's time for Apple to pay up.

It's estimated that claimants (who had a deadline of Oct. 2020 to put their names on the list, so don't get your hopes up if you're just hearing about this now) could get as much as $65 for their troubles. If you don't recall, the source of the controversy is that Apple was accused of purposely throttling (or slowing down) older iPhones. The idea was theoretically to keep the phones from unexpectedly shutting down when their batteries still had some charge left, but in the eyes of consumers, it could also be seen as a tactic to force people to get new iPhones.

Apple, for what it's worth, has never explicitly admitted wrongdoing here, but agreed to pay out somewhere between $310 million and $500 million anyway. And if you managed to get your name on the list before the deadline three years ago, you could have a check coming your way.