You did nothing wrong. You should have made the slowdown an option, with default “OFF”, and told people about it, and why.
No reason for lawsuits. The leftist media was irresponsible in blaming the left-oriented capitalist company for “cheating” customers.
There was actually no winning in this situation. There were threatened class action lawsuits in the unexpected shutdown situation as well which Apple was trying to prevent.
Sued if you did, sued if you didn't. That's our litigious society these days.
There's a guy on Seeking Alpha who has been writing a series of articles maintaining that the iPhones have a inherent design flaw in that the BATTERIES are insufficiently powerful enough to last the lifetime of the iPhone.
He's an idiot. No Lithium-Ion battery will last more than 500 to 700 charge cycles. It's the technology of the beast. The chemistry depletes after that many charge cycles. If a user recharges their device every day, that's the equivalent of 17 to 23 months of life before the battery is considered chemically depleted. When you reach that many charge cycles, the battery will charge to full voltage, but the depth of charge is no longer the same as new and the length it will hold that charge and how long it can provide a full flow of energy on demand is shortened.
There is no way with current technology to change that. . . but this Seeking Alpha idiot thinks that if the iPhone will last five years, the battery should be able to last five years at full charge capability without replacement as well, and since it doesn't, that's a "design flaw" on Apple's part. He maintains that Apple could have solved the problem by just putting a lot bigger battery in the iPhone, not understanding at all that bigger doesn't solve the charge cycle issue no matter how many times technical people tell him differently. . . and that Apple should be forced by the courts to refund the entire purchase price to all buyers of these "Flawed iPhones." He's written at least ten articles with that thesis.