Italy Fining Apple 10M Euros for 'Dishonest Commercial Practices' Related to iPhone Throttling

[840quadra]

Then Apple should just do that, stop updating the software on older devices after 2 years (or however long). I don't understand the obsession of needing the latest OS. Yes, it has more features but I'd rather have my device's hardware run the software it was designed to handle.

Maybe other manufacturers stop giving out software update for this exact reason? At least that might be part of the consideration?

All I know is my iPad 3rd gen runs much musch slower on the new iOS than the one it came with and I think Apple is responsible for that.

So yeah, I support the fine.

The fine is frivolous.

Your (and the one I own) iPad 3rd generation feels slow for the same reasons the iPhone 4 did. The system was overtaxed for the amount of pixels it was driving right from the start, which was evidenced by them both performing only slightly better than their predecessors in some benchmarks. Some full system benchmarks (including passmark) actually showed overall performance of the iPad 3 and iPhone 4 to be worse than the older iPad 2 and 3GS respectively.

I agree with your strategy of not updating phones ( I still have iOS 10 on my 5s) but disagree with the opinion that Apple should take away the choice. Sometimes people need updates for security reasons, or because the app they need to use requires new base OS features.

 

[Stella]

And?

Again Q: What has vista got to do with this story?

A: Sweet F.A!

It’s because Vista slows your pc down and runs significantly slower on older hardware. Therefore, a lot of people need to upgrade their PC in order for Vista to work.

The analogy makes a lot of sense.

Nope. Nothing of the sort. Unless your into "mind bending thought gymnastics".

 

[zoneee]

Perfect. In Italy you should just never be allowed to migrate past the OS your phone comes with. Your phone came with iOS 11? No iOS 12 for you. Your phone came with iOS 12? No iOS 13.

Problem solved.

Dumbest answer of the thread, you win!
Cant even argue with this logic

As an Italian Apple investor and user I'm quite worried/upset about misconceptions and racism going on this thread, thought this community was frankly better than that.

 

[partsofspeech]

Everything else can slow down in Italy, except unemployment rate, youth emigration, and iPhone speed.

 

[jarman92]

omg - italy - the land where everything is organised and just works.

Did I miss a sarcasm label? Because that's a real knee-slapper lol

 

[jlc1978]

Well if you keep having this annoying popup everyday eventually you will click the wrong button. One of the reasons I believe Apple was willingly forcing users to update is that other than this insinsting popup the update file would re-download after deleting it many many times! Why is that?

I agree Apple should allow you to turn off update notifications. My guess is they don't so as users get the latest security updates. I would prefer an email to my Apple ID email or text letting me know there is an update and an overview of its features.

You can stop the d/l completely for wifi as evidenced here:

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/stop-iphone-nagging-ios-software-update-3641478/

I often wait a while to update simply to see what new bugs are appearing so I can get a reasonably stable release.

I think we are in violent agreement here; my main gripe is with people who want the newest OS and have it be as functional on a several years old device as it is on a brand new one with a faster processor, memory, etc.

 

[KPandian1]

omg - italy - the land where everything is organised and just works.

You mean the country that gave the world its largest religion (Christianity, in case of doubt), so much religious culture, the telephone, and most importantly, in the twentieth century alone became a country that slowed down its emigration to almost nil by improving living standards?!

 

[tipoo]

I had just been thinking about this again and did think they got off too easy.

Sure, batteries degrade and it was to prevent sudden shutdowns when they do, but all they had to do to do it right was notify the user when throttling occurs. But they didn't do that for years until they got caught, and I don't believe for a second that upgrades from slowed devices didn't cross their minds.

I was particularly miffed as I got a 6S with a battery flaw that made them age quickly in months, and even those didn't get a notification to come in for a swap (until recent software years later).

 

[Ploki]

Oh wow, the 10 million italian government just got is retribution for so many italian iPhone users, especially someone who is using, or better, trying to use my stolen iphone 7 that ended up in turin.

Maybe they can spend it on their police force and to fight corruption, so my "super slow" iphone7 can find its way back to me.

what a joke
[doublepost=1540404115][/doublepost]

You mean the country that gave the world its largest religion (Christianity, in case of doubt), so much religious culture, the telephone, and most importantly, in the twentieth century alone became a country that slowed down its emigration to almost nil by improving living standards?!

/s

they have naepolitan pizza though.
and boy, that dough is great.
[doublepost=1540404156][/doublepost]

I had just been thinking about this again and did think they got off too easy.

Sure, batteries degrade and it was to prevent sudden shutdowns when they do, but all they had to do to do it right was notify the user when throttling occurs. But they didn't do that for years until they got caught, and I don't believe for a second that upgrades from slowed devices didn't cross their minds.

I was particularly miffed as I got a 6S with a battery flaw that made them age quickly in months, and even those didn't get a notification to come in for a swap (until recent software years later).

and they didnt fix much anyway, i got a new battery in january, and its september and the phone is already turning itself off at 10-15%. Yay apple

 

[apolloa]

Oh good! Although this is just down the back of the Apple sofa money, hopefully this will be the start of the anti trust floodgates against them and they end up being fined a LOT for their disgraceful behaviour and lying!

Have to say though, Italy is now the country being punished for singing up to the EU, being TOLD what they will and won’t do by a dictatorship. But with a tiny bit of luck the same corrupt dictatorship will fine Apple heavily themselves over this?

 

[I7guy]

Apple will just pay its’ fine and move on with its life; and that will be the end of it.

For those who want to see Apple brought to its knees, you’ll have to keep waiting.

 

[Glideslope]

10m Euros! Tim has that much in his couch cushions

Nah, pillowcase will do.

 

[rafark]

And as for the batteries, what do you prefer? a phone that slows down slightly to prevent unexpected shutdowns? Or a phone that shuts itself off randomly making you think its broken and have to replace it,

A working product should not shut down itself. Period. The fact you have to prevent it from shut downs means your product is faulty.

 

[Unimpossible]

Yeah, Italy made the wrong decision. Operating Systems become more resource heavy as technology advances and faster hardware and more RAM go into new phones to take that into account.

Its just the way technology works. Thats why eventually they stop supporting new IOS versions on older phones. Not for "planned obsolescence", but because the older hardware just plain CANT HANDLE IT!

And as for the batteries, what do you prefer? a phone that slows down slightly to prevent unexpected shutdowns? Or a phone that shuts itself off randomly making you think its broken and have to replace it?

The situation is actually worse for Apple if they DONT slow the phones down.

Then they should stop supporting iOS version much, much sooner. iPhones, and iPads, are crippled until they are useless, even if they’re on the last supported version.
So yeah, planned obsolescence.

And why would a software update suddenly fix devices so that they don’t shut down unexpectedly, if it’s a battery hardware issue?

 

[mpConroe]

Do they need money to patch their leaky budget (rejected by EU recently)? Oh, well...

 

[lec0rsaire]

This is not right godammit. Apple has always been a great value proposition. They’ve always kept phones past their prime on the newest firmware. They even offered battery service for $29 for an entire year. There was no reason for this suit considering how quickly Apple remedied the situation.

 

[mi7chy]

As an Italian Apple investor and user I'm quite worried/upset about misconceptions and racism going on this thread, thought this community was frankly better than that.

Must protect the Apple mothership and queen at all cost.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Then they should stop supporting iOS version much, much sooner. iPhones, and iPads, are crippled until they are useless, even if they’re on the last supported version.
So yeah, planned obsolescence.

And why would a software update suddenly fix devices so that they don’t shut down unexpectedly, if it’s a battery hardware issue?

This was not planned obsolescence. Mobile hardware sees tremendous gains on a yearly basis. Operating systems, apps and the web do not remain stagnant. They require more speed, more RAM as we integrate 4K video and higher quality assets. Web standards keep evolving and older hardware just cannot keep up. Could an iPhone 5S/6 perform better than they do if they had been equipped with double the RAM? Probably but 1GB was good enough for IOS 8-10. Apple ensures excellent performance for 2-3 upgrades until they have to move on.

Apple also gets criticized for soldered RAM on the MBPs. The reason it was soldered is because LPDDR3 is not available in DIMMs, only DDR3 and DDR3L are which are completely different. LPDDR3 only consumes 10% of the power in standby and DDR3L is not capable of running at 2133 MHz. Soldered components also increase reliability.

 

[actcyclist]

I replaced my iPhone SE in January 2018 because it was getting slow. If I knew it was the iOS throttling it and a battery replacement could have fixed it, I'd be using it now. I lost a lot of trust in Apple's iOS "upgrades" after that, I would have been better never updating the software after it was working fine out of the box.

 

[I7guy]

Must protect the Apple mothership and queen at all cost.

Gonna happen anyway. The universe does what it must.

 

[Onexy]

How much did they charge Microsoft for Windows Vista?

Microsoft wasn’t selling you the hardware.

 

[KPandian1]

Then they should stop supporting iOS version much, much sooner.
And why would a software update suddenly fix devices so that they don’t shut down unexpectedly, if it’s a battery hardware issue?

Apple has its edge because of the reliability of its products, hardware and software synergy and reputation for quality. They support their products for the longest period - in all consumer electronics, especially with security updates! Compare that to Office.

That said, when they started "throttling" the devices with depleted batteries with software updates, they knew that the issue was the hardware - here a battery that needed changing. A simple announcement would've taken care of the issue. Even if they made a significant profit on the battery replacement, that would've been cheaper to tenth or or even twentieth the cost of the new replacement iPhones people started buying.

That is a major hit on their honesty reputation. This was at a time when the audio jack was a major pain for a lot of people.

So, they should NOT stop their great support.

Your second question is moot.

 

[AdonisSMU]

A working product should not shut down itself. Period. The fact you have to prevent it from shut downs means your product is faulty.

Or it's just OLD.

 

[cmwade77]

omg - italy - the land where everything is organised and just works.

Really? You consider this a win?

Let's look at the numbers for a moment, shall we?
Apple's net worth is 1 Trillion dollars
They have at least $243 Billion in CASH
During the time that they were throttling (lets say 6 months), let's say they sold just 500 extra phones a day at an average of $300 a phone. That is $27,000,000 that they made off the extra phone sales.
Additionally, they eventually offered $29 battery replacements, their cost is most likely around $15 for parts and labor, which means for every battery they replaced they made about $14 profit. I am not sure how many they have replaced, but let's just say it is 100,000, that means another 1,400,000 in profits.

So far we are up to about 28.4 million in profits and Italy gives them a fine of 11.5 million, which compared to their net worth would be the equivalent of fining you me about $5 and we would have made about $250,000 off the fraudulent sales.
[doublepost=1540416936][/doublepost]

I wonder how many years of sales in Italy to get that 10M back ?

Years? No, try more like hours, maybe a couple of days.
[doublepost=1540417028][/doublepost]

Or it's just OLD.

No, the poster you quoted is quite correct, it means the device is faulty. Imagine if your "OLD" car did this on a regular basis, you wouldn't tolerate that, now would you? Yet we routinely drive cars for 20+ years with little issue, the same should be true for computers and phones. We need to stop of disposable mentality with these things.

 

[jimbobb24]

Odd when government statements mirror paranoid reddedit posts. Wait... that’s not odd at all for lazy corrupt bureaucrats.