What about every other phone that also does this? My Moto G5+ from 2017 still gets the same battery life that it did when I bought it, which is basically impossible, but the performance is a fraction of what it was. If you're going to focus on this issue, make it a law and go after everyone.
France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
61–70 of 287 posts
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Yup! All the silent throttling drama hit the mainstream in December of 2017, and Apple reacted with discounted battery replacements starting in January of 2018 and this update a few months later.
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#63It has been lost in translation but France fined for the lack of communication, not for slowing down the phone.
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#64Apple 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.
Exactly. Apple did not get fined for slowing phones down but for failing to inform the users.
It's the first sentence of the article. Perhaps the title on HN is misleading?
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#65Apple 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 own a Samsung phone from 2012 that runs fine, and has okay battery life.
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#66What about every other phone that also does this? My Moto G5+ from 2017 still gets the same battery life that it did when I bought it, which is basically impossible, but the performance is a fraction of what it was. If you're going to focus on this issue, make it a law and go after everyone.
i bought a cheap nokia 6.1 and the performance improved once upgraded to android 10
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#67Earlier 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.
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.
Idk, anecdotally my iPhone 6s (ok, it’s 6a not 6) is perfectly usable 4 years after the purchase. I have the throttling on.
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#68Apple 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 might be one of the few, but I think it does warrant it. People buy devices and expect them to work and keep working. If the battery had an issue then it should have flagged up that the phone was saving battery life and that they should replace the battery. We can't keep throwing away devices like this; it isn't good for the environment.
Why do I think it is important to be told? My old iPad has almost overnight slowed right down and it is unusable - utterly pointless using it. Why do you think that it slowed down? A new update? Maybe. Or maybe it is the battery. Let me go check... yes, the battery has an issue. Only because I know where to check means that I know how to resolve the issue. And I know that the battery replacement cost will be ridiculously expensive. If I didn't know this then I would buy something else. That's pretty bad.
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#69Apple 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.
Imagine if ford started to detune your engine as you added miles to the car, but DIDNT TELL YOU. You lost X horsepower every 1,000 miles.
> Imagine if ford started to detune your engine as you added miles to the car, but DIDNT TELL YOU. You lost X horsepower every 1,000 miles.
Would you guess, this is actually what's happening.
ECUs constantly adjusts for current conditions (EGR, variable gem turbo, o2/fuel ratio, fuel inlet timing, combustion timing, variable cam timing and phase, knock sensor...). As the engine is used, wear makes its performance degrade over time, and the ECU adjusts in real time for that. Maintenance such as timely oil change mitigate that, some parts may have to be replaced at some point (from spark plugs to turbo), and over time the engine itself wears out.
Here's a very specific example: all those cars with hypermiling downsized engines turbocharged to compensate perform brilliantly, but when the turbo is dead they can barely crawl themselves in 1st gear. In less extreme situations, turbo wear will put you relatedly anywhere within that [perfect, broken] range, and the ECU will do its best to compensate, unbeknownst to you.
Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is punished for trying to push the issue under the rug, perpetuating a situation that was beneficial to their revenue. It would be the same if an ISP silently slowed a user's internet when detecting their ISP provided router is getting flacky. That's not the right way of handling this, users should be warned of the issue so they can act accordingly, and not stay in the dark until someone discovers the hack.
The alternative would be to have phones turn off when they requested more power than was available. What do you think would cause people to want to replace their phones faster?
Part of the issue was that replacing the phones was not needed,
getting new batteries was enough (that was initially a 85$ replacement I think, that got down to 29$ after the issue was made public if my memory is correct. Don't quote me on this)
Case in point, when Apple explained the issue and their hack, people got way more interested in checking the state of their battery (wether they were affected or not), and there was a rush to replace used up batteries.
I tried to replace mine 2 months after the announcement, there was still a 3 weeks backlog of replacements.
Also to note: those phones were still turning off in some circumstances. It wasn't like Apple's hack completely removed the need to replace the faulty battery.