$15 Apple 'Antennagate' Checks in the Mail

Apple iPhone 4 owners who participated in a class-action lawsuit over "Antennagate" are starting to receive their $15 payouts from the tech giant, according to reports.

Checks issued on April 17 are arriving for the first wave of class-action responders who didn't pick up the free iPhone 4 case Apple offered as an alternative to the $15, according to 9to5Mac.

The tech site pointed to a tweet from once such check recipient, complete with a photo of the check.

Apple settled the class-action suit over "defective" iPhones last February and about a month later, put out the word that iPhone 4 owners could apply for either a $15 check or a smartphone bumper as their payout.

At issue was a signal quality problem with the iPhone 4 that emerged when the smartphone was released in June 2010. When users touched the outside rim of the phone where the two parts of the metal casing/antenna met, it could interfere with the signal and cause enough signal degradation to ruin a call. The issue with the fourth-generation iPhone quickly became known as Antennagate and the so-called "iPhone 4 death grip," which was replicated in the PCMag Labs, became a PR debacle for Apple.

Though Apple eventually offered users a free bumper in 2010, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs derided the complaints of iPhone 4 users, responding to one by suggesting the Apple customer wouldn't have reception problems if he would simply "avoid holding it that way."

That immediately infamous solution didn't hold up in court, however, and Apple wound up on the hook for a whopping $53 million in the eventual settlement with some 25 million owners of the iPhone 4. The settlement combined 18 individual lawsuits into one, and claimed Apple misrepresented itself by, "concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4 —particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software."

Of course, not all of the potential claimants will get the $15 payout or an iPhone bumper. The deadline for filing a claim on www.iPhone4Settlement.com has long since passed—claimants had just 120 days to file after Apple made the settlement opportunity available last March.

With additional reporting by Angela Moscaritolo and David Murphy.