Consumers Outraged as Apple’s Promised 10-Core GPU iPad Air Ships with Just 9 Cores

Recently, the alleged deliberate performance downgrade of Apple’s M2 iPad Air has been a hot topic among IT device review YouTubers. The device, which was downgraded from its original announcement, has drawn public outrage.

A YouTuber with 700,000 subscribers posted on his YouTube community with the title, “I just noticed, Cook? This is disappointing. I bought it at a high price.” He also mentioned an article from a media outlet.

People who saw this reacted with comments like, “I had a hunch something was off, but I guess this was it,” “That makes sense, it was strange that 128GB was the default option,” “Shouldn’t they refund us?” and “Oh my God. This is fraud.”

According to industry sources on the 2nd, the recently unveiled iPad Air by Apple has a 9-core GPU installed, not the 10-core GPU that Apple disclosed on its official Korean website.

Previously, Apple unveiled the 11-inch and 13-inch models of the iPad at an event on May 7. At that time, Apple stated, “The new iPad Air is equipped with an M2 SoC.” It also explained that it comes with an 8-core configuration, including 4 P cores and 4 E cores, a 10-core GPU configuration, 8GB of memory, and a 16-core neural engine configuration.

Moreover, Apple boasted improved performance through this. These devices have improved by 40% in neural engine, 25% in GPU, and 15% in CPU compared to the previous version, the M1. They emphasized that this provides 50% higher performance than the previous iPad Air M1 chip due to increased memory bandwidth and other factors.

Apple even claimed that the iPad Air with the M2 chip runs about three times faster than the iPad Air with the A14 chip.

However, the actual GPU that Apple installed is not 10 cores, but 9 cores, leading the industry to assume that the performance emphasized at the event has been somewhat downgraded. This information has yet to be officially announced by Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

When the issue became a topic in the community, Apple had listed a 10-core GPU on its Korean website, but it has now been changed to a 9-core GPU. It appears that Apple is aware of this controversy.

So, if Apple deliberately downgraded, can consumers who purchased under the impression of a 10-core GPU claim damages? According to a precedent, Apple has previously lost in Korean courts for deliberately downgrading performance through software updates.

At the time, the Seoul High Court Civil Division 12-3 broke the original judgment in the appeal of the consumer compensation claim lawsuit against Apple and ruled in favor of the plaintiff. The court said, “From the plaintiffs’ point of view, the iOS update would have been perceived as improving the performance of the iOS software, Apple’s operating system. Therefore, they had no choice but to trust it.”

This case arose from suspicions that Apple deliberately downgraded performance through iOS updates for older models. The appellate court at the time explained, “Even if Apple’s purpose was to prevent the phone from turning off, Apple had a duty to notify users with a sufficient explanation so that the user could choose whether to install the update.”

In other words, the court ruled that Apple is responsible for compensating the plaintiffs for damages due to incomplete performance of important notices and violation of notification obligations. To add on, in this iPad Air case, damage claims may be possible under false advertising regulations.

In most countries, there are legal protections that allow consumers to claim damages if they suffer harm due to false or exaggerated advertising. In Korea, there is an Act on Fair Indication and Advertising.

This law was enacted in 1999 to establish a fair trade order and protect consumers. False, exaggerated, deceptive, unfairly comparative, or defamatory indications fall under this law.