Apple Faces U.S. House Republican Inquiry Following iPhone Throttling Fiasco

Apple angered many of its fans when it finally admitted that it had been throttling devices with older batteries. Apple said that the slowdown was to keep devices with batteries that are older and have lost performance from shutting down prematurely. Eventually Apple decided that the way to appease customers was to offer significant discounts on replacing the old batteries in some devices with a price decrease down to $29.

Apple is now facing a potential inquiry from House Republicans who want answers from on its throttling policy. Four of the U.S. House Republicans, including the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday.

The letter asks Cook to answer questions about throttling older iPhones with batteries that have lost performance. The letter also expressed concern over an iPhone battery that overheated and began to smoke recently in Switzerland. Apple is also facing inquiries from the U.S. Senate as well with Senator John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, having sent a similar letter to Apple on Tuesday. At this point Apple has offered no official statement on either letter.

Apple is currently facing a number of class action lawsuits over throttling of devices with older batteries. Apple's competition is taking advantage of “ThrottleGate” fiasco and have announced they would never throttle older devices.