In First Ruling of Its Kind, Apple and Samsung Fined For Deliberately Slowing Down Old Phones (theguardian.com)

An investigation by Italy's competition authority has found that software updates "significantly reduced performance" on Samsung's Android handsets and iPhones. From a report: Apple and Samsung are being fined Euro 10m ($11.4m) and Euro 5m ($5.7) respectively in Italy for the "planned obsolescence" of their smartphones. An investigation launched in January by the nation's competition authority found that certain smartphone software updates had a negative effect on the performance of the devices. Believed to be the first ruling of its kind against smartphone manufacturers, the investigation followed accusations operating system updates for older phones slowed them down, thereby encouraging the purchase of new phones.

In a statement the antitrust watchdog said "Apple and Samsung implemented dishonest commercial practices" and that operating system updates "caused serious malfunctions and significantly reduced performance, thus accelerating phones' substitution." It added the two firms had not provided clients adequate information about the impact of the new software "or any means of restoring the original functionality of the products."

Comments

Nope

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

That way they should constantly fine almost all the software companies in the world because almost all of them deliberately slow their their software products all the time. Some programs are occasionally getting faster (e.g. web browsers, video encoders, compression software, etc.) but that's an exception.

Nice bribes

[Quakeulf]

Those pitiful sums won't stop them from doing it for as long as they are not physically restrained from scamming naive customers.

Re:Not sure about this

[Quakeulf]

I am still on iOS 4 for my iPhone 4. It works just as it should, except the Safari browser is gradually phased out and won't display all the unbearably fancy frameworks on most social media websites.

Re:Are updates mandatory?

[TheFakeTimCook]

If you really like your phone the way it is and are worried about slow downs, don't update. It's that simple.

More features == more bloat == slower than the previous software on the same hardware. This has been true since the dawn of computing.

Not in the case of IOS 12.

It actually runs (much!) FASTER than even the ORIGINAL iOS version on my iPhone 6 Plus.

Now what?

restoration is the crux

[epine]

There's a simple low-hanging fruit here: simply pass a law that software products much support reversion to any version the user might have previously installed.

And if the manufacturer wants to scrub an old version from the face of the planet (say, for example, they infringed a patent), then they must provide the old version with only those fixes, or only those fixes with substantially the same performance profile, plug-in API, and UI layout, etc. (though it might be built on a later release which is more feature rich, at the manufacturer's choice).

Second, we repeal prohibitions against reverse engineering if the default install of the best-available older release can be rooted right out of the box by a known exploit that's more than a year old. (If you won't fix it, the government is providing no assistance through the legal system to help you prevent your customers from fixing it themselves; and if they publicise any of your trade secrets in the process, so be it, that cat is now forevermore out of the bag.)

Note that we're not making anyone fix anything.

We're making the corporations do precisely one thing: support older products by allowing original firmware to be reinstalled (original firmware, or narrowly patched original firmware, preserving operational characteristics and user experience).

And we're also saying: if you can't eff yourself to make your default install secure, and you also won't eff yourself to amend your mistakes once they come to light (surely there weren't so many that this instantly drives you out of business), don't come begging to the fiat power of government to shelter your half-ass trade secrets.

This would create an a much-needed incentive structure for companies with half trillion dollar market caps to tempt their customers to embrace the future with carrots rather than sticks.

The Wild West of the smartphone explosion is long over now.

It's high time for a more studied pace of product churn, one where security gets equal shrift.

Note also that leaves innumerable loopholes available for software corporations to continue to shit on their user bases. But the shenanigans will be a little bit more out in the open, and easier to ridicule, and hence more effectively policed by the court of public opinion (which is where this should and would be litigated, if the court of public opinion was lifted off the mat).