Apple to pay $18 mn to settle suit accusing it of breaking FaceTime: Report

Over 3.6 million devices are said to have been affected by the iOS 6 update and each class member will receive an estimated $3

Apple has agreed to an $18 million deal to settle a class-action lawsuit in California that accused the tech giant of intentionally breaking FaceTime on older iPhones, specifically the iPhone 4 and 4S.

Over 3.6 million devices are said to have been affected by the update and each class member will receive an estimated $3, reports 9to5Mac.

Thirty per cent of the settlement fund will go to the class counsel.

The lawsuit's two class representatives, Christina Grace and Ken Potter, stand to gain up $7,500 each as an incentive award for their participation in the case.

To recall, FaceTime launched in 2010 as a first-party videoconferencing technology for iPhone.

The class-action lawsuit in California accused Apple of intentionally breaking FaceTime on iPhones running older versions of iOS.

According to the lawsuit, breaking FaceTime in iOS 6 allowed Apple to save money because it would no longer need to support users who did not upgrade to iOS 7.

Apple originally agreed to reach a settlement deal back in February.

The Cupertino based tech giant was also hit with a similar class action in Florida which was dismissed by federal court.

Apple has a history of getting into trouble owing to issues in its operating system powering the iPhones. The company’s latest iOS version 13 rolled out with lots of issues. The recent one includes internet hotspot issue where users were to send their iPhones for repair due to connection failures.

The Personal Hotspot feature allows users to enable tethering on their iPhone so that their other network-connected devices can access the internet.

The iPhone maker said that the issue is not hardware-related, and had advised customers to ensure that their devices are kept updated. The issue was resolved in latest iOS release.