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France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

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Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#51

Post by ogre_codes »

privateSFacct wrote: post #5

Apple implemented this to help users extend life of older devices. Apple should just have phones in France run full clock at all times to comply with this regulation. These types of things don't recognize that phone design is a CONSTANT power management / speed tradeoff. If you demand things run 100% speed at all times - poof - your batter life is gone.

Apple throttling phones to preserve battery life was the right thing to do.

Doing it without telling users their batteries were expired and causing their phone to slow down was the wrong thing to do.

Whether that merits a $27m fine is debatable.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#52

Post by speedgoose »

aerovistae wrote: post #2

Such a small fine as to not be worth reporting. "Man in California fined 15cents over parking dispute"

It's not about the amount, it's about sending a message. It's in the news, it's a lot more expensive for Apple.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#53

Post by kemayo »

throwanem wrote: post #43
CamelCaseName wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While keeping revenues and margin is certainly a priority, I think the bigger issue is a desire to not split the Apple userbase across multiple iOS versions. "Less than a year after release, iOS 12 has reached 88% of all active iOS devices" [0] By contrast, Android has an insane amount of fragmentation, though the link is outdated, at the time, Marshmellow 6.0 had the most users, at 16.9% of all Android users, while…

I'm not sure how this is relevant. Throttling has been present in iOS since at least version 10 (2016), if not longer - IIRC 10 added the settings UI to override throttling if you want to, but I'm not sure when the actual capability landed. Preventing ecosystem fragmentation is well and good, but it's orthogonal to publicizing that the OS does CPU throttling on devices with batteries whose power delivery is compromis…

> IIRC 10 added the settings UI to override throttling if you want to, but I'm not sure when the actual capability landed.

11.3 in March of 2018 added the override UI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_11#11.3

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#54

Post by stouset »

supergarfield wrote: post #18
dangus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely a multifaceted issue, especially because Apple’s communication was so poor. Though it’s not like companies are in the habit of communicating their CPU scheduling strategy to their customers. The customers don’t care nor can the comprehend that information. It still boggles my mind how many people I know refuse to get batteries replaced. The price is totally reasonable from all manufacturers, way more…

> Though it’s not like companies are in the habit of communicating their CPU scheduling strategy to their customers. The customers don’t care nor can the comprehend that information. I think nobody’s talking about publishing their actual scheduling or CPU throttling algorithm, just about saying "we're slowing the phone down to save battery life, which it seems nearly everybody would understand.

“Slowing down the phone to save battery life” is happening during 90%+ of your phone’s life, even from day one.

There’s no conspiracy here. This was almost certainly just a well-intentioned part of their power management design that affected the performance of older phones more than anyone in a position of leadership intended or realized.

Bug report comes in: phone shuts down unpredictably when the battery is aged. Engineer see the issue, tweaks some values to make sure the peak power draw is kept in check when voltage drops, closes bug. How anyone who’s ever worked as an engineer in a large organization thinks this was some intentional decision to sell a handful more phones at the cost of upsetting customers is a mystery to me.

Nobody is perfect. Apple is far better than most.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#55

Post by dpkonofa »

eitland wrote: post #14
privateSFacct wrote: post #5

Apple implemented this to help users extend life of older devices. Apple should just have phones in France run full clock at all times to comply with this regulation. These types of things don't recognize that phone design is a CONSTANT power management / speed tradeoff. If you demand things run 100% speed at all times - poof - your batter life is gone.

I think the message is that Apple (and everyone else) should deliver quality that lasts more than two years.

You're saying that Apple is somehow uniquely able to defy the laws of physics and that other companies shouldn't be required to do the same? This isn't a quality issue. It's an issue with the chemistry and physics of batteries.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#56

Post by throwanem »

kemayo wrote: post #53
throwanem wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this is relevant. Throttling has been present in iOS since at least version 10 (2016), if not longer - IIRC 10 added the settings UI to override throttling if you want to, but I'm not sure when the actual capability landed. Preventing ecosystem fragmentation is well and good, but it's orthogonal to publicizing that the OS does CPU throttling on devices with batteries whose power delivery is compromis…

> IIRC 10 added the settings UI to override throttling if you want to, but I'm not sure when the actual capability landed. 11.3 in March of 2018 added the override UI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_11#11.3

Oh yeah, that checks out. That was after the huge stink over silent throttling, wasn't it?

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#57

Post by throwaway55554 »

baby wrote: post #34
rbritton wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did [0], and to me it's a legitimate course of action to extend device life and minimize support load a bit. However, it should be disclosed clearly and not covered up until it blows up. [0]: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-slows-down-older-iphone-batt...

They found a way to legitimize planned obsolescence at the eyes of the public. Apple should be celebrated for this, not sued. /s

They found a way to cover up an ongoing design flaw in the phone/battery capacity combination. The phones are too powerful for the batteries that Apple uses.

Almost no other line of phones has this issue.

It is amazing how people twist this situation to make Apple the hero for saving "old" phones.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#58

Post by chadlavi »

ogre_codes wrote: post #51
privateSFacct wrote: post #5

Apple implemented this to help users extend life of older devices. Apple should just have phones in France run full clock at all times to comply with this regulation. These types of things don't recognize that phone design is a CONSTANT power management / speed tradeoff. If you demand things run 100% speed at all times - poof - your batter life is gone.

Apple throttling phones to preserve battery life was the right thing to do. Doing it without telling users their batteries were expired and causing their phone to slow down was the wrong thing to do. Whether that merits a $27m fine is debatable.

It's not, but a lot of people got really mad, so it makes the politicians look good to their constituents if they do something punitive to satisfy the mob's anger.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#59

Post by bgorman »

ogre_codes wrote: post #51
privateSFacct wrote: post #5

Apple implemented this to help users extend life of older devices. Apple should just have phones in France run full clock at all times to comply with this regulation. These types of things don't recognize that phone design is a CONSTANT power management / speed tradeoff. If you demand things run 100% speed at all times - poof - your batter life is gone.

Apple throttling phones to preserve battery life was the right thing to do. Doing it without telling users their batteries were expired and causing their phone to slow down was the wrong thing to do. Whether that merits a $27m fine is debatable.

I absolutely disagree.

These phones were unusable with the throttling. I switched to Android because my iPhone 6 was unusable less than 3 years after getting it.

This is like saying that an appropriate fix for a car manufacture is to limit the maximum speed of a car to 25 miles per hour. It breaks so many use cases that the car becomes worthless.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#60

Post by 1_2__4 »

chadlavi wrote: post #58
ogre_codes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple throttling phones to preserve battery life was the right thing to do. Doing it without telling users their batteries were expired and causing their phone to slow down was the wrong thing to do. Whether that merits a $27m fine is debatable.

It's not, but a lot of people got really mad, so it makes the politicians look good to their constituents if they do something punitive to satisfy the mob's anger.

You’re sarcastically mocking politicians in a democracy doing what their constituents want?
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