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

Post by manfredo » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

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.

Post by outworlder » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

throwaway55554 wrote: post #57

baby wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by codydh » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

jb775 wrote: post #87

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.

> 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 batte…

Post by user1980 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #22

eitland wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They absolutely do, but batteries have physical limitations that result in lower power output over time. Under those conditions, the phone can either intermittently crash as older Android phones do, or adjust CPU power draw which will slow down the device. The only other options are to replace the battery or the device. There’s no free lunch to be had here. IMHO, Apple’s “crime” here is bad communication.

Post by kazinator » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

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.