Apple Settles Lawsuit Over Expanding Watch Batteries

The lawsuit has been underway for years

Original Apple Watch
The lawsuit concerns early versions of the Apple Watch.
Stephen Lam/Getty Images

The years-long legal fight over the batteries on early generations of Apple Watches appears to have reached its conclusion. A class-action lawsuit kicked off in 2019 with the accusation that the first four generations of the Apple Watch’s battery had a tendency to swell. Now, as TechCrunch’s Brian Heater reports, Apple has agreed to a $20 million settlement — though the company also maintains that it has done nothing wrong.

The settlement agreement details a number of ways in which affected Apple Watch owners can claim financial redress. But Apple also made it clear that it doesn’t believe it’s acted in error. “This Agreement shall not be construed in any fashion as an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Apple,” one passage late in the agreement states. “Apple specifically denies having engaged in any wrongdoing whatsoever.”

If the idea of a company paying millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit while denying that it did anything wrong seems a little contradictory, it’s worth mentioning that Apple expanded on their rationale for settling in a statement shared with TechCrunch.

“While we strongly disagree with the claims made against these early generation Apple Watch models, we agreed to settle to avoid further litigation,” it reads in part. Apple also noted that the four models of Apple Watches covered in the lawsuit are no longer available for purchase.

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The early-generation Apple Watches are far from the only devices to have had issues with batteries swelling. In 2018, Engadget reported on MacBook Pros experiencing swollen batteries; more recently, Samsung phones also experienced a similar issue. It’s a source of frustration for technology companies and device owners alike.

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