Why Apple's defense of "faulty batteries" is not acceptable for their slowing down of older iPhones

Apple escaped with barely a slap on the wrist today by being ordered to pay a fine of 25 million euros by the French watchdog DGCCRF for covertly slowing down older iphones by releasing an update to users without informing its purpose or providing an option to revert back.

In their defense of the indefensible, Apple has stated the excuse that they did it to "smooth out battery performance" as batteries of older iPhones were wearing out.

Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components. Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions.

This excuse from Apple is hardly acceptable due to two reasons.

Firstly, they never stated the purpose of this update until they were caught red handed. By failing to communicate this important fact to the user, they kept him under impression that his older phone is slowing down due to wear and thus coerced him to upgrade the phone.

Secondly, they didn't even allow an option to revert back the update, thus leaving user with no option but to upgrade or live with a degraded performance. Nor did they convey to the user that simply upgrading the battery will solve the problem. As DGCCRF rightly said, "this lack of information to consumers constituted a misleading commercial practice by omission."