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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

#251

Post by chipotle_coyote »

varenc wrote: post #224
flatiron wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way they could do this securely. They would have to patch old OSes for flaws and such.

For devices that don't support more recent versions of iOS, Apple does make minor updates to old major versions. For example 6 months ago Apple released iOS 9.3.6, fixing some issues for the iPhone 4S which is forever stuck on iOS 9.

Yeah, that's the way I would think they could do it if they chose -- sign all of the releases of the current major version and the last release of each previous major version, going back, say, five years. I don't really see a compelling business case for not doing that, unless the worry is that they'd be on the hook for security flaws in old, no longer maintained releases -- which I imagine could be legally covered by a prominent disclaimer, e.g., "Releases older than [X] are no longer supported and audited for security fixes and you assume all responsibility for installing them."

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

#252

Post by toxican »

DevKoala wrote: post #223
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, you could've just reverted to a previous OS - unfortunately, that's another thing that isn't possible with an Apple phone.

No you couldn't, I remember this being a PITA. Unless you had done the backups of your data yourself and wiped the installation of the machine, you were screwed. This is the same situation for iOS. https://www.overclockers.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2889...

What you're describing is just inconvenient. With iOS you literally cannot downgrade very far at all. For example, they stopped signing everything older than iOS 13.0 when 13.1.1 released. You've got a very narrow window of opportunity to downgrade and the options are few.

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

#253

Post by oceanghost »

wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

Look, boss. I've been to the "genius bar" half a dozen times, asking them to replace the battery on my phone, which would only last a few hours, and they refused not only warranty service but, could I just pay them to fix the phone? And they said no. In every case, my only option was to buy the newest phone. In once case, they blamed me for using Facebook too much for a faulty battery.

Same with various iMac models I've owned that they refused to admit fault with until they were well out of warranty.

I was, literally, the legal rep to Apple for a company with 500m a year in sales, and they would still bullshit me like this. I literally, had so much authority I could buy every single product at South Coast Plaza and have it billed to my company, and Apple wouldn't let me pay to have my battery replaced.

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

#254

Post by manfredo »

catalogia wrote: post #235
manfredo wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is they didn't tell anyone they were doing it. Then France should issue fines for every electronic device sold that had this functionality. Except that would have meant fines being issued for effectively every laptop, phone, and tablet sold in the last decade. What Apple did is a near-universal function in battery powered devices with powerful processors. It'd be funny id Apple disabled this functionali…

Going after big offenders first is just common sense. France did right to go after Apple first since that would make the biggest splash.

Right. And between going after Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and now Apple one really has to wonder if "biggest offender" just coincidentally seems to mean the same thing as "non-European offender" or if there's a reason for this pattern.

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

#255

Post by AlisdairO »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #249
AlisdairO wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution seems straightfoward to me. Slow down the phone, and output a message saying 'this iPhone is being slowed down due to an old battery. Replace the battery to restore performance'. Then have a warning sign on the battery screen with a similar explanation. My wife's iPhone got throttled, and it felt really bad to use. This wasn't some small hit to performance that you can just do without informing the custo…

They literally do just that. When it first happens, they’ll notify you with a notification. Go to the battery screen in the settings and tap “Battery Health.”

Yes, they do now. They didn't then.

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

#256

Post by robocat »

88840-8855 wrote: post #133
wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

This is true, however, their software is slowing down the phone. I recently compared the iPhone 7 with iOS10 vs iPhone 7 with iOS13: the camera app got slower and is shooting blurry pictures often, the gallery app is slower and less responsive, the keyboard takes a significant time to open now vs. always instantly available. The phones do "get slower" - and this is annoying af.

Did you compare on the same device, or a device with very similar storage usage and both with new batteries?

The batteries issue is obvious (as per this thread).

The Flash memory slows down over time with usage. For example the Nexus 7 slowed to a crawl because the flash in that device was especially prone to slowing down. It happens eventually to all flash (although I presume that Apple uses high quality flash that stays fast for longer).

> shooting blurry pictures

That's a very strange symptom.

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

#257

Post by megablast »

oceanghost wrote: post #253
wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

Look, boss. I've been to the "genius bar" half a dozen times, asking them to replace the battery on my phone, which would only last a few hours, and they refused not only warranty service but, could I just pay them to fix the phone? And they said no. In every case, my only option was to buy the newest phone. In once case, they blamed me for using Facebook too much for a faulty battery. Same with various iMac models I…

What phone? If they don’t have the parts, what do you expect them to do?

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

#258

Post by catalogia »

manfredo wrote: post #254
catalogia wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going after big offenders first is just common sense. France did right to go after Apple first since that would make the biggest splash.

Right. And between going after Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and now Apple one really has to wonder if "biggest offender" just coincidentally seems to mean the same thing as "non-European offender" or if there's a reason for this pattern.

This seems like an American persecution complex more than anything else. Americans and their corporations seem to think that regulation is persecution.

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

#259

Post by oceanghost »

megablast wrote: post #257
oceanghost wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, boss. I've been to the "genius bar" half a dozen times, asking them to replace the battery on my phone, which would only last a few hours, and they refused not only warranty service but, could I just pay them to fix the phone? And they said no. In every case, my only option was to buy the newest phone. In once case, they blamed me for using Facebook too much for a faulty battery. Same with various iMac models I…

What phone? If they don’t have the parts, what do you expect them to do?

I expect any process to be "honest."

Apple is not fundamentally honest.

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

#260

Post by procinct »

sov wrote: post #192
wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

> Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw I see this posted a lot and I honestly just don't buy it. Processor power draw for most high-priority OS tasks (eg: keyboard input) are virtually zilch compared to keeping the screen lit for that much longer. Everything says this happens to older phones, not phones with high usage. If you get th…

I definitely don’t know as much about batteries as you clearly do but yes, the phone will return to normal clock speed after a battery change. It keeps being reported as “older phones” but it’s really more like older batteries.
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