> They did not lose, they settled a class action suit.

I mean... settling means you lost, almost by definition. You were sued and then paid the person who sued you. Settling is the result of almost all lawsuits where the company knows they were at fault - why would you go to trial if you know you're going to lose?

Now, don't get me wrong - your overall point could still be correct. Many companies who still do believe themselves to not be at fault, offer a settlement purely for the reason that it's cheaper in terms of legal fees (or perhaps less of a PR nuisance, or just generally lower-risk) than going to trial.

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dragonwriter 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> I mean... settling means you lost, almost by definition.

No, since "settling" is something both sides do, if it were losing, it would be both sides losing.

Settling is a decision to compromise to mitigate the cost of litigation (and in the US, which does not have loser pays as the default rule, that can be quite expensive even if you win) as well as the risk of loss. You can’t really characterize it as being more "winning" or "losing" for anyone one party without a much more detailed consideration of the specific terms and the expected costs of litigation, etc.

	▲	wavemode 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> You can’t really characterize it as being more "winning" or "losing" for anyone one party without a much more detailed consideration of the specific terms and the expected costs of litigation, etc. Yeah... you can. The party suing received $500 million. That's a win. Yes, a settlement has to be agreed on by both sides, but that doesn't mean the party suing didn't win. It just means that, maybe they could have won more. Where you and the parent commenter are correct is that, the result of this case is not the same as a court verdict regarding the legality of Apple's conduct. That part true - if we're talking about "was Apple truly intentionally killing their phones to get you to buy a new one", the outcome of the case says nothing about that. But to make a statement like "they didn't lose, they settled" is just misleading. Almost every company that has ever done something illegal settled, that's not an argument either. This case had at least enough merit to spook Apple into coughing up over half a billion dollars ($500 million to the class action and $100 million to the coalition of state attorneys general who sued Apple for deceptive practices). (Again, not proof of guilt but at least evidence of the claims having some merit.) In the grand scheme of things they definitely lost.