Slashdot Mirror
Do Apple and Google Sabotage Older Phones? What the Graphs Don't Show
Harvard economics professor Sendhil Mullainathan takes a look in the New York Times at interesting correlations between the release dates of new phones and OSes and search queries that indicate frustration with the speed of the phones that people already have. Mullainathan illustrates with graphs (and gives plausible explanations for the difference) just how different the curves are over time for the search terms "iPhone slow" and "Samsung Galaxy slow." It's easy to see with the iPhone graph especially how it could seem to users that Apple has intentionally slowed down older phones to nudge them toward upgrading. While he's careful not to rule out intentional slowing of older phone models (that's possible, after all), Mullainathan cites several factors that mean there's no need to believe in a phone-slowing conspiracy, and at least two big reasons (reputation, liability) for companies — Apple, Google, and cellphone manufacturers like Samsung — not to take part in one. He points out various wrinkles in what the data could really indicate, including genuine but innocent slowdowns caused by optimizing for newer hardware. It's an interesting look at the difference between having mere statistics, no matter how rigorously gathered, and knowing quite what they mean.
I don't think there's any reason to read a conspiracy into the situation. They release a new phone that's much faster, and then they release an updated OS with new features to take advantage of that extra computing power. Adding features that use more computing power makes the old phones seem slow.
I'm tempted to compare it to the development of desktops and laptops, both of which went through similar upgrade cycles before leveling off a bit. However, there's a big difference in that desktop and laptops were developing quickly to cram features into the OS, at the cost of focus on efficiency, which serves as a partial explanation as to why things became "slow" with upgrades. Desktop and laptop software went through a period of bloat, and then in recent years, additional features traded off against speed gains from recoding things with efficiency as a goal. Meanwhile, Android and iOS needed to be written to be efficient from the start. They wanted to make the hardware as small/thin/light as possible, which meant that the power requirements had to be low. To give an example of the effects of this, a requirement for using as little power as possible has been the reason iOS has always limited multitasking.
The methodology of testing the hypothesis is to look for google searches about "iphone slow" or "samsung slow". Assumption made is if people search for "iphone slow" Apple might have done something to slow down iPhones. The control group is Samsung which has the same motive as Apple but not the means because it does not control the OS.
Actually, the data was gathered to see if the professor's view that his phone had slowed down was also shared by other iPhone users; they found an interesting correlation between search spikes and new iPhone models but were careful to say that doesn't prove anything other than people perceive a slowdown when a new phone comes out. He points out some valid reasons why the Samsung / Apple data differs, primarily that Apple releases a new version of IOS with the new iPhone and thus the new iOS may not be optimized for older hardware while many Android users remain on an older version. In addition, since the Andriod device makers don't control Android they may find it cheaper not to spend a lot of time on the OS and rather invest in hardware improvements as the differentiator.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You must not be very observant or extremely patient if you think iPad 2 is the same "use speed" as it was 2-3 iOS versions ago. It's tremendously slower under iOS 7...
What I find with my iPad 2 is that some websites have a lot more Javascript than they used to, and the iPad 2 isn't really fast enough to cope with them. Previously, those websites would have used flash, which didn't work at all, but generally you could still use the website without the flash plugins.
If you turn off some of the animation stuff that has been added in iOS 7, it is fine.
Yeah, come to think of it, my washer is a lot slower these days......
Well your suspicion is incorrect. There is a separate build for the OS for each supported device. If you download the OS on the computer from iTunes you have to download a copy for your specific device.
I've noticed the same thing about my body. Damn you, Apple!
You are welcome on my lawn.
The methodology of testing the hypothesis is to look for google searches about "iphone slow" or "samsung slow". Assumption made is if people search for "iphone slow" Apple might have done something to slow down iPhones. The control group is Samsung which has the same motive as Apple but not the means because it does not control the OS.
It is a big leap, there could be various other explanations of varying degrees of malice. As the new release comes through, bug fixes for older releases are put on back burner, apps are changed and tuned to take advantage of new version run slower in older version.. Or the way graphics subsystem is organized in iOS might have different bottlenecks based on the display resolution. So as new releases come in, default sizes for buffers and hashtables might change deep in the OS slowing down older apps.
And if you are going to postulate "Apple might slow down older versions deliberately", why can't you postulate, "Google might spike and skew the history of the past searches to make Apple look bad"?
There's another problem with his theory as well; as we all know, Android phones don't get many OS updates, if any at all. Every study that checks (using real methods) the Android versions currently in use based on hardware, vendor, or general population finds that unless you bought your phone very recently, there's almost no chance you're running the latest version of Android. So how is it that Google is managing to slow down old phones with code in the new versions of Android in the first place?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
In the end, the professor, after writing thousands of words, comes to no conclusion.
He's an economist. That's his job.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The question though is whether they're instructing the compiler to *optimize* for each target platform, or if the only difference is the drivers, etc. included for the different hardware.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
My 2012 Nexus 7 was getting unbelievable slow, then I did a factory reset and it was speedy again. I, also use tools to tweak what programs run at start up, which has helped a lot, too.
Exactly! The methodology is incorrect. And, after having spoken with the good people at AT&T (that's right, buy at the sign of the Death Star) it is the Telcos that are responsible for slow-downs, not the telephone makers.
Why? The Telcos want you using the latest tech so that you will have a two-year contract with them that you cannot easily get out of without paying them lots of money. This keeps you "loyal." And it gets you on the treadmill of upgrades that ensures your loyalty. So what the telcos do is that they "sunset" technology that supports the older phones. And all of their upgrades on their cell towers (which usually aren't really towers that much any more) support new radios and signaling, not the old stuff.
So blame Apple and Samsung all you want, but it's the Telcos that are responsible for slowing down the older tech, not the manufacturers.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Google doesn't supply updates to most of the Android phones. It's the device manufactures that do that.
I have a Nexus 7 (1st gen 2012) and still get updates from Google.
Hypothesis one: users' irrational fetish/honeymoon-glow feeling about their old phone is brainwashed away by the advertising for the new phone model so that they're better able to perceive its slowness relative to laptops that cost the same amount.
Hypothesis two: users aren't searching because they suddenly think their phone is slow. They always thought their phone was slow, but before there was nothing they could do about it. They're searching for reviews comparing the speed of new and old phones, to see if there's really an improvement.
Hypothesis three: Apple and Google are somehow slowing down the phones without pushing software updates to them (since, except for Nexus, Google isn't even _able_ to time software update pushes).
Possible journalist approaches: measure the speed of the fucking phones. Ask users why they were searching with a poll on the landing page for the search. Conduct a web poll trying to distinguish hypotheses one and two, shortly after the release of a new phone. Ask Google and Apple if they are slowing phones down, and if they have any historical phone speed measurements they would like to share so you don't have to do it yourself.
To write the actual article: delete hypotheses one and two, then say "I have no evidence to confirm or deny [complicated hypothesis three scenario] but let me explain how it would work."
Fuck this guy. Google and Apple deserve, and desperately need, better criticism than this.
Google doesn't supply updates to most of the Android phones. It's the device manufactures that do that.
The manufactures don't either.
HTC G2 (aka Desire Z) and HTC One S. Updated ended barely a year after purchase.
My smartphone (Samsung Galaxy II) started running slowly. Even after I removed all the unused apps that I had downloaded, movies and photos, it was still running slow. Then I started looking through every single folder. It seems that the trash-cah wasn't actually emptying, and that there was a directory called ".faces" which seemed to archive every single picture that the AI software thought was a face. After those files were removed, my phone regained it's original speed.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads