Apple. As a household name synonymous with luxury and innovation, Apple has always maintained a certain amount of intimacy with the public, having by far the best public opinion of all tech companies. However, the once-respectable company now finds itself at the center of a number of lawsuits regarding possible violations of consumer protection laws, a challenge to its previous credentials.

Less than a month ago, the media rose into a frenzy with reports that Apple had deliberately slowed down older iPhones through its iOS updates, affecting even iPhone models as recent as the iPhone 7. As a result, millions of users found their iPhones operating far slower than was expected. In response to these allegations, Apple released an official statement to their customers aimed at restoring the public’s faith in the company. The statement explained that the slowing down of older phones was not a systematic attempt to shorten the lifespan of Apple products, but rather a misunderstood attempt by Apple, to increase the functionality of its devices. According to the company, iOS updates implemented power management software designed to prevent unexpected shutdown in older iPhones at the expense of occasional reductions in performance.

While Apple claims that they implemented these iOS updates for the sake of their customers, this practice raises a number of suspicions regarding planned obsolescence, the production of goods designed to quickly become obsolete. Apple’s problem stems from their failure to disclose information on the nature of problems regarding older phones. Over time the lithium-ion batteries inside iPhones lose capacity, sometimes resulting in unexpected shutdowns; but, the key is that these issues stem only from decaying batteries, not decaying processors. So, while customers might easily restore their older iPhones with a battery replacement, Apple’s lack of communication on the issue misled consumers into replacing their phones entirely, a much more expensive procedure. This lack of transparency is the primary complaint of the more than 30 lawsuits Apple faces. A lawsuit filed in San Francisco argued that the inability of iPhone batteries to function properly was a defect and that “Apple sought to mask the battery defect … rather than curing the battery defect by providing a free battery replacement for all affected iPhones”.

As a form of compensation and a sign of good faith, Apple reduced the cost of its iPhone battery replacements from $79 to $29 and promised to add battery health visibility features in future iOS updates. Focusing on the notion of transparency, Apple ended with a simple message: “At Apple, our customers’ trust means everything to us. We will never stop working to earn and maintain it”. But, where does this scandal leave Apple? In the past year, Apple’s reputation has slowly, but surely declined, leaving the company as the world’s 20th most reputable brand, a significant decline from its spot at number 10 the year before. Lagging behind its competitors Microsoft, Google and Sony, Apple seems to have lost both an understanding of its consumers and the trust of the public. Who knows? Perhaps this might signal a shuffling of power in the tech industry in the years to come.