Italy’s competition authority has fined Apple €10 Million ($12m/£8.9m) for ‘aggressive and misleading’ commercial practices regarding its iPhones.
It said the US tech firm ‘did not make it clear that this feature exists under certain specific conditions’, notably in laboratory tests with static and pure water, ‘and not under normal conditions of use’.
The regulator said Apple advertised several iPhone models as being water-resistant without clarifying they were only so under certain circumstances.
It added that the company’s disclaimer, saying its phones were not covered by warranty in case of damage from liquids, mislead clients, who were also not provided support when their phones were damaged by water or other liquids.
LADbible has reached out to Apple for a comment.
This comes after Apple agreed to fork out $113 million (£85m) to settle allegations that it slowed down user’s iPhones.
In the US, 33 states claimed the company had taken the steps in a bid to driver users into buying new devices. Millions of people were impacted when the models of iPhone 6, 7 and SE were slowed down in 2016.
According to the BBC, the scandal – which was dubbed ‘batterygate’ – was explained by Apple, which said the phones were slowed down to preserve ageing battery life (not to make people get new ones).
The tech giant had already agreed to pay up to $500m (£378m) to settle a lawsuit brought in California which related to them slowing down the phones.
Sky News reports that Apple has now agreed to pay out on the settlements after acknowledging a software update hampered the performance of older iPhones.
The company apologised for slowing down the devices and has agreed to replace batteries at a discounted price, but it has never acknowledged any wrongdoing.
Back in October, Apple shared a fix for iPhone and Apple Watch battery drain in connection with the recent iOS 14 update.
In the support guide, it advised that users should factory reset their Apple Watch AND iPhone, ensuring they back up their phone to iCloud before fully resetting it.
Tech Radar reports that Apple’s new guide details a series of problem raised by users after they updated to iOS 14, including missing health data and routines, broken fitness apps that won’t open and ‘increased battery drain on your iPhone or Apple Watch’.
For the latter, it would appear that the only fix involves unpairing your iPhone, backing up both your phone and watch to iCloud, and then running a factory reset on both devices.
If you don’t pay for iCloud services, you’ll have to free up enough space to back up your data, before importing back onto your devices once they’ve been reset.
