Apple has agreed to pay $53 million to make a class action lawsuit against the tech giant - specifically for its iPhone and iPod Touch warranties - go away.
A filing submitted on Tuesday to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California stated the tech giant will pay up to $300 to customers who were denied warranty for their products. The settlement is pending approval from the court. The settlement stems from Apple's apparent use of a flawed liquid submersion indicator (LSI) in their products. Such indicators are often used to approve or deny customer warranty.
LSIs are a specialized type of tape which changes color when it touches water. According to Apple, they can prove to be an effective method of determining whether a defunct product stopped working due to defunct hardware, or extensive water damage. Typically, Apple refuses to replace products damaged by liquid, saying liquid damage voids the product's warranty.
But consumer lawyers say LSIs can only prove exposure to liquid - not extensive damage or product abuse. Additionally, they argue, LSI indicators can be hyper-sensitive to weather conditions, and can indicate alleged water abuse to Apple employees after merely being exposed to humidity. Consumers launched the lawsuit against Apple in 2010, claiming the company unfairly denied warranty coverage under its liquid damage policy.
Apple customers who were denied warranty before December 31, 2009 due to Apple's liquid damage policy are eligible for compensation, as are customers who bought an iPod Touch before June 2010. According to ZDNet, up to 150,000 customers are eligible.
The lawyers representing consumers can claim up to 30 percent of the settlement, according to Bloomberg - a take home just shy of $16 million.
This, of course, isn't Apple's first run-in with complaints about the company's warranty policies. In the past, according to The Wall Street Journal, Apple has clashed with customers over screen scratches on its first generation iPod Nano and the battery quality of the company's iPod line.
In China, the company ran into heavy criticism for only repairing Apple products for Chinese customers, instead of outright replacing the products like the company does in other countries. Apple has since changed its policy in China, with CEO Tim Cook offering a personal apology.
