【Mission XXX Impossible】

Apple has confirmed the U.S. government is Mission XXX Impossibleinvestigating the company after it was discovered Apple slowed down (a.k.a "throttled") older iPhones. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are reportedly probing the company, though Apple wouldn't confirm any specific agencies.

The tech giant, however, has denied any malicious intent, and reiterated that "we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades."

As it's being investigated by the U.S. government, Mashable's received the following statement from Apple:

"About a year ago, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on certain iPhones with older batteries. We know that iPhones have become an important part of the daily lives of our customers and our intention was to improve the customer experience."

"We sought to further improve the customer experience in December by announcing a significant discount on replacement batteries for certain iPhones. We also announced that we began developing a new iOS feature to show battery health and which would recommend when the user should consider replacing their battery. These actions were taken to further assist our customers and help extend the life of their iPhones. In addition, users will be able to see if the power management feature is being used to prevent unexpected shutdowns, and turn if off if they so choose. These features will be included in a developer release next month and a user release this Spring."

"As we told our customers in December, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love. Making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that."

"We have received questions from some government agencies and we are responding to them."

Following the throttling discovery, Apple apologized to customers for failing to be more transparent about what was actually happening behind the scenes.

The company has since created several initiatives to correct its mistakes. The first was to slash battery replacements for out-of-warranty devices from $79 to $29.

The second move is forthcoming in a future update, iOS 11.3, set to be released sometime in the spring. iOS 11.3 will include two important new features: 1) more detailed information on an iPhone battery's health and 2) a setting that'll let users turn off any automatic power management features.

As we've said before, the software update is a good olive branch to please upset customers, but it may not be such a great idea.