Tim Cook Says Apple Tried to Warn You About the Battery Slowdown

At the end of 2017, Apple got hit with class-action lawsuits after a 17-year-old proved that they were purposefully slowing down older iPhones with crappy batteries. And while the company ended 2017 by apologizing, Tim Cook recently hit ABC News with a "but actually," saying that they'd told iPhone users with older phones that they would be doing this.

"When we did put [the software update] out," Cook says, "we did say what it was, but I don't think a lot of people were paying attention. And maybe we should have been clearer, as well." The line Cook is referring to told users that Apple would be making "improvements to reduce occurrences of unexpected shutdowns that a small number of users were experiencing with their iPhone."

Cook offered a deep apology, saying that this slower-iPhone update wasn't a scam to get users to cop a newer phone. In an attempt to regain some goodwill, Apple is said to be reducing the charge to replace older iPhone batteries. Cook also says that an update coming to iPhones in February will allow users the ability to shut off the option of this iPhone slowdown—although he doesn't recommend it, because this can mean the iPhone could shut down automatically.

Maybe copping a new iPhone is the move, if you can swing it.