Your payments from Apple’s ‘batterygate’ settlement may finally be on the way

Some iPhone owners who filed claims in Apple’s $500 million class action settlement over battery throttling have reportedly started to receive their cuts of the payout. In 2020, Apple agreed to settle a 2017 lawsuit that accused the company of intentionally reducing older iPhones’ performance without properly disclosing to consumers that it was doing so. At the time of the settlement, it was estimated that iPhone owners would get payments of around $25 per claim. But, according to MacRumors and a direct deposit screenshot shared by one user, individual payments as high as $92 started arriving this weekend.

The settlement, which only applies to US iPhone owners, covers iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus and SE as long as they ran iOS 10.2.1 or later before December 21, 2017, along with iPhone 7 or 7 Plus that ran iOS 11.2 or later by the same cutoff date. Claims had to be filed by October 2020. People who owned multiple models that meet these criteria were allowed to put in separate claims for each — meaning some will have a series of payments from Apple to look forward to.

If you haven’t received a payment yet, rest assured it’s probably coming soon. In a December update posted on the settlement website, it says payments should start dropping in January 2024, which lines up with reports that they’ve started to trickle in.