Apple to pay $18mn as settlement for FaceTime lawsuit

San Francisco, April 30 (IANS) Apple has agreed 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, that 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.
--IANS wh/na