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US Government Investigates Apple Over iPhone Battery Slowdowns (phonedog.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PhoneDog: The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating Apple about its updates that slowed performance on iPhones with older batteries. Sources speaking to Bloomberg say that the agencies are looking into whether Apple violated securities laws regarding disclosures about its updates that throttled older iPhones. So far, the DOJ and SEC have requested information from Apple. Because the investigation is still early, it's unclear if the agencies will actually take an action against Apple. Apple apologized for not being more clear about its actions after the news of its performance-throttling updates came out, but we've still seen class action lawsuits and now this investigation come out. The good news is that Apple will be more transparent about iPhone battery health and performance in the future, but for now, it'll have to deal with the DOJ and SEC.
It's easier to shake them down than to actually fix broken tax laws. This is the shake-down.
It's less about the technical facts and more about the intent. Did they truly slow these phones down for the sole intent of managing aging batteries, or did they do it knowing full well that it may discourage users of these phones enough that they would then see purchasing a new phone as the best course of action? If you cripple working phones in order to drive sales, is that not something you would want the government to investigate? Imagine if you had an older car and the manufacturer, without your knowledge or consent, dropped the performance of the engine down to a level that caused it to be sluggish and aggravating to drive. Would you not have a problem with this, no matter what reason they coughed up when pressured for an explanation?
What's there to investigate, really? They admitted that they did it. The information is public.
From TFS: agencies are looking into whether Apple violated securities laws regarding disclosures.
Is this something we really want the government doing?
Do we want the government checking whether publicly companies illegally fail to disclose important information to their investors? And punishing any companies found to have done so? -- YES, emphatically YES.
Interesting that they are investigating potential defrauding of investors, where as in Europe it's potential defrauding of customers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC