You Have Less Than a Week to Claim Your Piece of the Apple iPhone 'Throttling' Settlement

Earlier this year, Apple admitted it secretly throttled older iOS devices, and subsequently agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit. Millions of iPhone owners are eligible for a share of the payout, but you have less than a week to submit your claim(s)—the deadline is Tuesday, October 6.

You qualify for the settlement if you own(ed) one of the following iPhones before December 21, 2017:

• An iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, or SE that ran iOS 10.2.1 or later

• An iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus that ran iOS 11.2 or later

As per the settlement terms, claimants are entitled to as much as $25 per eligible device, and you need to submit individual claims for each device. The amount you will receive depends on the number of claims received—if more than $500 million is claimed, your individual payment could be less than $25.

If you have an eligible device, you can head on over to the website that’s been set up for U.S. iPhone owners; there you’ll find more information and a couple of options for submitting your claim online or by mail.

With either methods, you’ll need your eligible device’s serial number—and if you don’t have it handy, you can search for it by entering some additional information into the online claim form.

Alternatively, you can opt to exclude yourself from the settlement, which will allow you to sue Apple directly over similar issues in the future. You can also object to the settlement, request to speak at the final hearing, or do nothing at all if you don’t like money, I guess. The only way to get paid is to submit a claim before the October 6 deadline.

Of course, you won’t see your money right away. The settlement FAQ notes that the judge in the case could sign off on the deal after the final hearing on December 4—but if there are any appeals, the process could drag on longer and delay payouts.

Update: This story was originally published in July 2020 by Emily Long. We’ve updated it to remind you about the timeline.