Apple Inc. faces transcontinental legal woes over software changes which slowed the performance of certain iPhone models.

According to Bloomberg, the Cupertino-based technology giant faces a preliminary French criminal probe for “programmed obsolescence” and “deceit” after consumer groups accused the company of deliberately shortening the life span of older iPhones.

Back stateside, plaintiffs lawyers have asked the Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation to coordinate at least 30 federal lawsuits targeting the company with a variety of consumer protection, fraud and trespass claims related to the performance woes of older smartphone models.

The moves come as Apple officials released a rare public apology on Dec. 28 over how the company handled performance issues for iPhones with older batteries and how it communicated that process to customers. The company announced it will drop the price of replacing the battery for out-of-warranty iPhones by $50 to $29 and updated its software to alert consumers whether battery issues were affecting their phones' performance.

But Apple's mea culpa came after online chatter about performance issues in older iPhones had reached a fever pitch. Conversations on Reddit sparked a Dec. 18 post from the founder of the company behind Geekbench processor testing software—Primate Labs founder John Poole—who found iPhones with older batteries exhibited “lower-than-expected” performance in tests.

Poole concluded that Apple's fix to the sudden shutdown problem in older phones would “cause users to think, 'My phone is slow so I should replace it,' not, 'My phone is slow so I should replace its battery.'”

In the wake of Poole's post, Apple officials initially told tech website TechCrunch the company installed “a feature” on older iPhone models with batteries that are unable to meet the peak electrical demands needed to operate in cold conditions or when phone batteries have a low charge. The company said its aim was to “smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed” to avoid unexpected shutdowns of the older phones.

In the Dec. 28 statement, Apple said that the company now believes “the continued chemical aging of the batteries in older iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s devices” contributes to user problems.

Reached by phone Monday, James Vlahakis of Sulaiman Law Group, lead counsel in one of the initial cases targeting Apple on the issue, said that the company's delayed—and changing—disclosure speaks volumes.

“Even if they are doing it to help people, they should have” said so, Vlahakis said. “What did you have to hide if you were doing something good?”