A seeming conspiracy theory that has been making the rounds for the past year was proved true last week when Apple Inc. admitted to slowing down older iPhones. This revelation prompted the filing of at least eight lawsuits against the tech giant.

Apple Thursday offered an apology of sorts to customers over its handling of the whole process and outlined the steps it’s taking to remedy the situation. It’s important to note that the company isn’t apologizing over its decision to throttle the speed of older iPhones, a decision it is sticking to. Rather, the apology relates to the fact that Apple kept the whole process a secret from its customers.

“We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down,” Apple said. “We apologize. There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we’re making.”

Apple has said it didn’t intentionally keep the battery performance slowdown a secret to drive consumers to upgrade. But consumers who upgraded for the mere fact that their old iPhone had become slow and buggy now know that a battery replacement could have remedied this situation, rather than buying a new iPhone. That revelation doesn’t sit well with some Apple consumers.

Apple has laid out how it will address the concerns over the performance of batteries, starting with a discount on the replacement of iPhone batteries. Starting now and lasting for the rest of 2018, Apple will offer a battery replacement for $29, a $50 discount off the normal cost, for an iPhone 6 or later. Additional details of how the process will work will be provided on the Apple site soon.

The company also plans to issue an iOS update in the new year, which will provide users with details of the health of their iPhone battery, whether it’s affecting performance and whether a battery replacement would help performance.

Apple has also published a support article to help consumers identify the warning signs if their iPhone’s speed is being throttled because of a degrading battery. These include:

• Longer app launch times
• Lower frame rates while scrolling
• Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)
• Lower speaker volume by up to 3 decibels
• Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps
• During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled, visible in the camera UI
• Apps refreshing in the background may require reloading upon launch

Image: Apple