Apple Reportedly Agrees To Refunds In Mac-User Suit

Apple has reportedly agreed to give refunds of $25 to $79 in cash to as many as 2.3 million Mac users who bought replacement power adapters for the PowerBook and iBook, court documents revealed Friday.
The refund is part of Apple's proposed settlement of a class-action suit filed in 2006 over spark-prone adapters that shipped with the Mac computers. According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., federal Judge James Ware gave preliminary approval March 24 to the agreement reached with plaintiffs, BloombergNews reported.

The suit claimed that Apple misrepresented problems with the adapters, the news agency said. The Mac maker recalled 570,000 of the devices, and offered replacements at no charge. A hearing on final approval of the deal is scheduled for Sept. 8, Bloomberg said.

The settlement was the second reported this week involving an Apple product. Apple Canada offered a total of $3.54 million (U.S.) in credits to Canadian iPod owners, in order to settle two lawsuits over the battery life of the portable music players.

The credits are being offered to owners of first-, second-, or third-generation iPods bought before June 24, 2004, The Gazette newspaper in Montreal reported. The lawsuits, one filed in Montreal and the other in Toronto, claimed that the rechargeable batteries in the devices died after three hours of use, while Apple advertised the iPods as running for eight hours between charges.

As many as 80,000 Canadians could be eligible for a credit, lawyer Philippe Trudel, who represented the plaintiff in the Montreal suit, told the newspaper. The credit of $44 (U.S.) per person would be usable at Apple's online store.

Apple has had to deal with other marketing-related lawsuits this year. In March, a class-action suit filed in federal court in San Jose, Calif., accused the company of deceptively marketing its 20-inch iMacs by grossly inflating the capabilities of the monitor. The plaintiffs claimed the monitors were inferior to previous generations of displays. The suit is pending.