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Apple Fined 25 Million Euros in France for Slowing Down Older iPhones With iOS Update

The throttling fix was, I thought, a very good thing to do that was poorly executed. They should have been transparent and said up front that it was a way to make your aging batteries last longer by trading off against performance (and potentially sparing more landfill fodder), and it should have been a user preference setting. I would also have made the default for the preference be what Apple selected because (in my opinion) it was the right choice.
Frankly, I see other many smaller software/hardware companies make blunders like this all the time and their customers complain, behaviors are subsequently modified and life goes on. Apple, however, have lots of cash and that attracts lawsuits etc. One of these days lawyers will descend to suing for every little software bug targeting those who have the money to cough up. They're already doing it for frivolous patents and the like.
 
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Should be 10 times that amount. They went all cloak and dagger about it. If it was an innocent move in the best interests of the customer they would have been up front.
same goes for any other company involved in the smart phone version of VWgate.
 
That general public will sit on their thumbs until told to be outraged about something and then they take it to the ends of the earth.

Phone battery old and phone shuts down "be outraged that "APPLES" phone batteries shut down!!"
Phone battery old and phone slows down a bit to not shut down " Be outraged over something you didn't even know!!"

Hey let's Go buy something else ?
"NOOOO I'm going to stay with the same company that I am outraged about so that I can continue secretly liking it but publicly complaining about it!!"

Because millions of customers taking their money elsewhere will take a immediate hit to Apple pocketbooks whereas a fine can be negotiated out over payments over time.
So if you are legitimately outraged. Actually be outraged and speak with your money.


Do a majority of ya'lls vehicles still perform at the same level 4 years later with 50+ thousand miles on it? Hey, let's get outraged at vehicle manufacturers if they don't hit the same miles per gallon as when brand new, because that ACTUALLY costs you more money to operate. SUE!!
 
uller6 said:
This is a BAD ENGINEERING decision. When initially designed, the battery capacity was matched to the maximum power draw of the components without considering what would happen in 1-2 years of heavy use. They designed the phone to the edge of its performance envelope and surprise, that design didn't hold up to the real world. If Apple had put slightly bigger batteries into the phones in the first place this wouldn't be an issue at all.
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I dont think you get it. The reason apple was fined was not hardware related. If apple was transparent from the beginning, updating the IOS and informing users that they should replace their batteries for optimal performance and giving them the toggle that we now have, nobody would complain. In fact I think everyone would applaud apple for making sure users are aware of a battery replacement to protect their phones.

But what they did instead was to throttle phones without a notice, effectively trying to exploit the situation to sell more phones. That is why they are being fined for.
 
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Valkyre said:
I dont think you get it. The reason apple was fined was not hardware related. If apple was transparent from the beginning, updating the IOS and informing users that they should replace their batteries for optimal performance and giving them the toggle that we now have, nobody would complain. In fact I think everyone would applaud apple for making sure users are aware of a battery replacement to protect their phones.

But what they did instead was to throttle phones without a notice, effectively trying to exploit the situation to sell more phones. That is why they are being fined for.
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Dont bother to respond to these folks. There is a contingent of folks in the forums that love apple no matter what. I am flashing back to the days when this news hit. A group here just keep saying Apple did everyone a favor despite the fact that tons of us bought new iphones after reps said a) the battery was just fine and didn't need to be replaced (their battery app is still misleading I believe). b) the iphone was just old and we probably would want a new one.

This incident still disappoints me but we have to move on, as android just isnt an option (for me).
 
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If the battery is old and can not put out the amps, there are three choices. The first is to reduce the amps the phone is using. The best way to do this, slow down the CPU or the GPU. The second choice is to just shut the phone down. The third choice is, let the battery explode like a grenade. I prefer the first option over the second. The third could be kind of fun if you give the user a bit of warning. (Option 3 should be disabled if the phone detects it is in an aircraft.)
 
Apparently some people would rather have their battery (whose capacity naturally degrades with age) always keep their phone running at 100% peak performance, rather than keeping their phone going longer between charges.

And are OK with the phone shutting down when it might be needed in a critical or emergency situation.
 
ignatius345 said:
It's a great engineering solution to a hardware issue, but by not telling customers about it, Apple just "happened" to have a lot of people buy new phones.
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And if Apple had told people about it there would still be a ton of suspicion about Apple's motivation, sparking more whinefests of epic proportions on tech forums such as MR.
 
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Apple should have let the old phones shutdown by themselves. Obviously the French prefer faster phones than ones that would give them more usage time. Yes, they could have communicated this better but the fact that they are trying to extend the life of a phone (instead of people being pissed off of phones just turning off - which has happened to me many times) speaks of their commitment for user satisfaction. It's not a perfect world and battery technology has barely gotten better over the years - but at least they looked for a solution. It's a sucky world out there. They would get castrated whether they slowed the phone or did nothing for phones shutting down randomly. I personally would rather have a "working" phone than one that didn't even turn on. The $25m is a token fine but Apple will learn how to deal with the EU who actively tries to find reasons to screw them over.
 
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macmediausa said:
Apple should have let the old phones shutdown by themselves. Obviously the French prefer faster phones than ones that would give them more usage time. Yes, they could have communicated this better but the fact that they are trying to extend the life of a phone (instead of people being pissed off of phones just turning off - which has happened to me many times) speaks of their commitment for user satisfaction. It's not a perfect world and battery technology has barely gotten better over the years - but at least they looked for a solution. It's a sucky world out there. They would get castrated whether they slowed the phone or did nothing for phones shutting down randomly. I personally would rather have a "working" phone than one that didn't even turn on. The $25m is a token fine but Apple will learn how to deal with the EU who actively tries to find reasons to screw them over.
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True and well-said.
 
Oh no, not 25 million euro, how on earth will Apple afford that?
A whole 0,03% of their quarterly revenue!
Le Gasp!
 
aroom said:
is it planned obsolescence though? tweaking the os to be able to keep it running with an old battery seems like the opposite.

they should stop hunting unicorn and go full on for the right of repair. those soldered ssd and ram, glued battery, etc. that's the practice I like to see changed in the future.
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What Apple did is make people who had "slow" iPhones to buy new ones instead of just getting the battery replaced. You see the benefit to Apple, right?
 
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macmediausa said:
Apple should have let the old phones shutdown by themselves. Obviously the French prefer faster phones than ones that would give them more usage time. Yes, they could have communicated this better...
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Communicate better??? They did not communicate at all. They kept it quiet and to compound the deception, had Apple Store staff tell customers that the battery was finished and worst of all strongly suggested that the best solution was to buy a new phone.

Too many Apple supporters gloss over the reprehensible and deceptive behaviour of Apple by stating versions of "yes, they could have done things better but...blah, blah, blah. Not willing or able to truly admit that Apple was wrong and took advantage of consumers.
 
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MacRumors said:
Apple Fined 25 Million Euros in France for Slowing Down Older iPhones With iOS Update
...
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Suppression of Fraud (DGCCRF), which is part of the country's economy ministry, concluded that Apple had failed to inform users that iOS updates to older iPhones could slow down their devices.
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The title of the article is false and misleading. And it contradicts this second sentence of the article [underlining mine] - Apple was NOT fined for slowing down older phones, they were fined for not informing users that they were slowing down (some) older phones.
 
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e1me5 said:
Funny, I knew about the “throttling” when it was first released. It was a couple of weeks after I replaced the battery because of the faulty 6S batch that was forcing them to shut down. Furthermore, I kinda thank apple for this feature as my 6s is no very old, its still usable and I don’t have to replace the battery or the phone right now but I can wait for the next iPhone in October.
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The problem was not the "Feature" which I also think is good, but Apple's continued arrogance that they don't have to give their customers options or notifications.
 
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It’s just a government racket. Some prosecutor now has a huge new feather in his cap. It looks like they even understood that Apple’s approach to handling aging batteries was in good faith.

Obama’s DOJ and EPA lawyers did this all the time. As a corporation there is nowadays no way to not inadvertently run afoul of some regulation or law. This is not to say that some don’t engage in bad practice knowingly and try to get away with it.
 
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