Here come the first Apple lawsuits over the slowing down of iPhones

It's only been a few days since the world learned Apple was purposely slowing down older iPhones in an effort, as they say, to save battery life. And already we have our first series of class-action lawsuits against the tech giant.

While some have suggested it's not a big deal, others have responded with outrage. Now there are two lawsuits, one filed in Illinois and another in California, calling shenanigans on the whole thing.

The Illinois lawsuit, filed by five people — a pair in Chicago with other plaintiffs from Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina — calls the practice "deceptive, immoral, and unethical" and says the iOS updates Apple has been rolling out to slow old phones down “were engineered to purposefully slow down or ‘throttle down’ the performance speeds."

Meanwhile, the lawsuit in California was brought by two people who claim, among other things, that Apple "never requested consent," that they "were never given the option to bargain or choose whether they preferred to have their iPhones slower than norm," and that the slow downs "caused the interference and loss of value to Plaintiffs and Class Members' iPhones causing them to suffer, and continue to suffer, economic damages."

You can read that lawsuit in its entirety here, via The Guardian.

TL;DR: In both cases, people are pissed Apple did this without their permission, claim it devalues their phone, forcing them to chuck out more money for the newer models (and those newer models are sure as hell expensive), and want compensation for having phones that, to them, aren't fully functional.

In a statement sent to Mashable when the news of the slowdowns broke, Apple defended the move, saying:

Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.

Mashable has reached out for further comment from Apple on the lawsuits.