Apple sued over 'error 53' iPhone shutdowns

Australian regulator acts after tech company "bricked" devices

An Australian regulator is suing Apple Inc. AAPL -0.52% over software which disabled iPhones and iPads that had been serviced outside Apple stores after users downloaded updates.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges Apple violated Australia’s consumer law by shutting down or “bricking” the devices, and then telling customers the company wouldn’t fix the problem at no cost because their devices had been previously serviced by third-party providers. The errors appeared from September 2014 to at least February 2016.

Apple last year said “Error 53” was a mistake that was designed to be a factory test and apologized for the inconvenience,