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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

#81

Post by Infernal »

puszczyk wrote: post #67
bgorman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My iPhone 6 that I bought at launch was useable for all five years it was supported by iOS, on the original battery. Only upgraded for iOS 13. I still switch it on as a Netflix terminal sometimes, no issues.

Crucially, I never once left it plugged in all night - I believe not constantly fully charging the battery massively extends the useful life.

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

#82

Post by Wowfunhappy »

bgorman wrote: post #59
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.

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.

That's probably not the throttling. That's new iOS being too heavy for your old hardware.

Which is the bigger problem here. iOS devices are completely impossible to downgrade, so if an update slows down your phone, you're stuck.

It's hugely wasteful. iOS isn't substantially more capable than it was five years ago—why is it so much heavier?

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

#83

Post by jerkstate »

ninkendo wrote: post #74
bgorman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Would you prefer the car simply turn off entirely while driving at highway speeds? Because phones with this issue would turn off entirely below certain charge levels, when the batteries had this issue. A more appropriate analogy wo…

as a matter of fact, modern cars (including French manufacturers like Renault) implement a "limp home" mode that limits the speed when problems are detected in the engine or transmission. It's hard to believe that Apple's action could be so poorly understood.

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

#84

Post by kazinator »

ninkendo wrote: post #74
bgorman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Would you prefer the car simply turn off entirely while driving at highway speeds? Because phones with this issue would turn off entirely below certain charge levels, when the batteries had this issue. A more appropriate analogy wo…

> Would you prefer the car simply turn off entirely while driving at highway speeds?

If the vehicle's age is only the equivalent of a phone being two or three years old, I would prefer a real fix, free of charge, in addition to any safety mitigation. I wouldn't want the mitigation to be regarded as the fix.

People have decade-old phones that aren't throttled and still have usable battery life at the same time.

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

#85

Post by nerdponx »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #82
bgorman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's probably not the throttling. That's new iOS being too heavy for your old hardware. Which is the bigger problem here. iOS devices are completely impossible to downgrade, so if an update slows down your phone, you're stuck. It's hugely wasteful. iOS isn't substantially more capable than it was five years ago—why is it so much heavier?

Forget impossible to downgrade. Stop pushing updates on devices that can't run them.

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

#86

Post by achamayou »

jerkstate wrote: post #83
ninkendo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Would you prefer the car simply turn off entirely while driving at highway speeds? Because phones with this issue would turn off entirely below certain charge levels, when the batteries had this issue. A more appropriate analogy wo…

as a matter of fact, modern cars (including French manufacturers like Renault) implement a "limp home" mode that limits the speed when problems are detected in the engine or transmission. It's hard to believe that Apple's action could be so poorly understood.

A substantial difference as others pointed out is that Apple did this quietly, whereas limp mode is typically notified to the driver about loudly as anything can be.

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

#87

Post by jb775 »

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.

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

I don't buy this for a second. They've been throttling devices for many years and conveniently never mentioned it or built features that allowed control of it until they were forced to. It was always their fallback excuse in the event they got caught.

Their next strategy is building hardware that forces devices to constantly hold full battery charges at all times so it kills the (un-replaceable) battery faster which leads to a faster re-purchase (i.e. airpods).

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

#89

Post by pflats »

kemayo wrote: post #29
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...

Yeah, they _eventually_ got to an acceptable balance where they announce it and show the current status in the battery settings. But that was only after the PR blowup about it. I'm sort of conflicted about the fine hitting now, as a result. If they were still being intransigent about the issue, sure, but they've already fixed it...

> I'm sort of conflicted about the fine hitting now, as a result. If they were still being intransigent about the issue, sure, but they've already fixed it...

It seems right to me. It's a relatively small fine; Apple makes a few hundred Euros in profit per phone. I'm not sure how many iPhones are in France, but I'd venture to guess this is less than 2 Euros per device.

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

#90

Post by outworlder »

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.

My pretty new phone will also throttle when the battery gets low (at close to 1%). It's very noticeable, but there's no warning.

Where do I collect my $27M?

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