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Italy Fining Apple 10M Euros for 'Dishonest Commercial Practices' Related to iPhone Throttling
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Apple provided an update that they said included a new "power management" feature. Did the update include a new "power management" feature? Yes. It addressed known issues with lithium ion voltage supply in a mobile phone sized battery. Could they have communicated something more specific? Yes. Does that by itself mean that Apple was being dishonest? No. After all, the OS is going to limit CPU clock speeds in other situations that don't actually involve peak voltage demands. That's just the reality of saving battery charge in a mobile device.
They did, after they have been called out, and since with iOS 12 older phones magically came back to life proves they did something dishonest.
iOS 12 definitely made phones faster as demonstrated by several tests by most of the major sites.
My dad's iPhone 5s is running surprisingly great on iOS 12.
If you've been paying attention, Apple is actively growing the Services section of the company. It makes perfect sense to want devices to last longer so the second-hand market can be a source of new subscribers.
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You just said iOS 12 didn't make phones faster.
It seems like in your rush to be critical, you aren't being consistent.
The government likely expended resources - time, manpower, expertise. Lawyers. Should tax payers be on the hook when the government investigates a company?
Re read my post, i said people thought it was impossible (before it was released) and a nw sw is of course heavier (se emany replies in this very thread).
I never said ios 12 didn'ìt make it faster quite the opposite "wich in here people say it was impossible as new SW is definetly heavier."
The fact that ios 12 made things faster proves my point, they where dishonest and slowed down older phones on purpose before.
May be my english is not perfect, but I said exactly that!
No, the original update that included the feature provided a general description of "power management" being added. Apple didn't specify that it was for preventing voltage draw above what the battery could provide in specific situations, but that isn't really an example of being "dishonest" like Italy is claiming.
Not possible, Apple is God, a Saint, they would never lie or do harm to anything or anyone, EVER! People just lie and are greedy!
Macrumors.....the place where progressives turn into corporate shills.
Still angry the Fiat Strada I bought in 1979 only lasted 39k miles before it almost completely fell apart.
Slightly revised? No. You would need a significant advancement in lithium ion technology in order to ensure that a phone sized battery didn't have voltage supply issues at 80% capacity, in cold weather, or at 20% or lower charge.
those 10M will sure help with the 40B budget being discussed
All you wrote about evolving software demanding more powerful hardware is true but you might be missing the point here: back then nobody knew that the performance drops were related to degraded batteries. Therefore nobody was able to choose between your options.
If Apple didn’t secretly throttle the iPhones, their users would have been able to conclude that all they needed was a battery replacement for the devices to function properly again. But by not telling the users about the cause for the slow-downs, Apple - maybe unintentionally, maybe deliberately - left them under the impression that their iPhone’s hardware simply wasn’t able to handle the current iOS/apps/tasks at adequate speed anymore.
That’s why Apple got fined. Not for implementing the mechanisms but for not explaining them to the affected customers so they thought their iPhones had become obsolete because of overall age. If Apple had added some more details to the patch notes, they probably would have avoided this whole mess.
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Replace the battery and you should see an improvement in performance. Having said that, I'm not sure it's worth the price to do so on such an old device.
Funny that the Apple apologists are out again on this topic.
They wouldn't replace my battery because their tests said it was still over 80%, even though my phone was having the shutdowns before the iOS change, and ridiculously terrible performance after, so I bought a new phone.
After the news broke and they changed the battery policy to voluntary replacement even above their alleged 80%, I got a new battery in the old phone and gave it to my nephew, and now it works perfectly. Their practices directly led me to buying a new phone. I'm sure in the nature of scale around anything Apple, if it happened to me, I'm sure a hell of a lot of people did the same.
I'll still buy more Apple products, and I'm a stockholder, but here is a case where they were very unethical and should be penalized for it.
They wouldn't replace my battery because their tests said it was still over 80%, even though my phone was having the shutdowns before the iOS change, and ridiculously terrible performance after, so I bought a new phone.
After the news broke and they changed the battery policy to voluntary replacement even above their alleged 80%, I got a new battery in the old phone and gave it to my nephew, and now it works perfectly. Their practices directly led me to buying a new phone. I'm sure in the nature of scale around anything Apple, if it happened to me, I'm sure a hell of a lot of people did the same.
I'll still buy more Apple products, and I'm a stockholder, but here is a case where they were very unethical and should be penalized for it.
And how is that relevant to this story?
Sooner or later, some one had to pull Microsoft into this!
Sooner or later, some one had to pull Microsoft into this!
Governments are represents of the people elect. Advertising in a specific country reaches a lot of the public, if people are mislead it is a waste of the courts time to trial every case against a company, class-actions are also possible, however countries enact laws to protect its people. If any of those laws are breached the award is injected back into the country.
Many companies receive tax breaks from governments to create jobs and investment opportunities. It’s a business relationship and nothing more.
Now if you ask me if the parties involved do the moral thing, that is another debate.
A. Degraded batteries were not the only scenario for a voltage draw request that was too high. It could also happen in cold weather or when the overall charge was around 20% or less. Those last two scenarios could occur with brand new batteries.
B. I don't think you can really claim that the general public wasn't aware or didn't have access to information that would tell them that rechargeable batteries would degrade over time. It's not like smartphones were the only electronic product that made use of rechargeable batteries. And even if they didn't have that knowledge, Apple did provide information to the public regarding the number of charge cycles they could expect to get from the original battery. Nobody can claim Apple never previously provided that info to people who were actually interested in being informed.
The only people who benefit out of these "fines" is government. It doesn't help the people affected. Apple make much more than €10m out of Italy, so it means very little to them.
Will it mean they won't do any more "shady" stuff... of course not.
Will it mean they won't do any more "shady" stuff... of course not.