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

Did they put in spin loop on sleep()?

[forkfail]

No? Then much as I really hate having to perfectly good hardware as often as it seems that I do, I am not sure that the incompetence and laziness of bloatware kernels and OS's is actually malicious per se.

Re: Did they put in spin loop on sleep()?

[Shaitan]

"In other words, the developers are building kernels, OS's, and apps for new hardware, not the old stuff."

Huh? That isn't a paraphrase of what you quoted at all. You quoted apple admitting they've intentionally slowed down older phones under the guise of extending battery life.

Re:Did they put in spin loop on sleep()?

[AmiMoJo]

With every new version they add some extra bloat. New built in apps you don't want, new services to deliver ads or DRM infected media. Apps that used to work just fine get updated for the new hardware with twice the RAM and suck on your device.

And then you get the update pushed on you hard. Refusing means stuff stops working and no more security patches for you.

Re: Did they put in spin loop on sleep()?

[Xenx]

I'm not disagreeing with your point, but it's not as simple as just extending battery life. To be specific, it extends the usable age range of the battery in the overall sense as opposed to the life per charge cycle that most people mean by battery life.

For those that might need/want clarification, the issue is that the phone will shut down when the peak power draw exceeds the capability of the aged battery. This will happen, even when the phone still has what would otherwise be a decent charge left. As the battery ages, it isn't able to maintain the voltage output it used it. By putting limiters on the performance, it's preventing the phone from exceeding the capability of the battery.

Re: Did they put in spin loop on sleep()?

[joemck]

You can't refuse the upgrade without root, at least on Galaxy S7. You can push "later" for a while, but then the choice disappears, leaving "update now" and "update tonight".

Re: Did they put in spin loop on sleep()?

[CoolDiscoRex]

Actually, there is no 'decline' button, only 'upgrade now' and 'upgrade later', and since there is no meaningful way to convey to Apple that you do not agree and do not want the update, whiel also being pestered ad-nauseum on the hardware that you own, it throws contract law out altogether, and the subsequent 'agreement' you have to 'agree' to doesn't hold much water.

For a contract to be valid, you must have the option to both agree and decline. Without these two options, it's not a contract or agreement. Not a binding one, at least.

It always seemed like an oversight, but I guess Apple lawyers ae that confident that none of you will ever sue,

If you own a company, though, and you want to bind people to an agreement ... always include a decline button next to the agree button.

You may not pester as many people into agreeing, but at least you can legitimately claim that the people who did agree, agreed, instead of simply gave in to make the daily harrassment stop.

Not sure about this

[XxtraLarGe]

So now they have a couple of choices:

1. A. Release software updates that can slow older phones down
2. B. Release software updates only for newer phones

It seems to me that they would get in trouble for "planned obsolescence" either way. I'm sure some are thinking "What about 'C. Release software that doesn't slow down older phones'?", but that may not be possible based on the hardware. The only other realistic option is "D. Don't release software updates".

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: Not sure about this

[TheFakeTimCook]

Wow, you aren't very creative. How about option E - give the user a setting you can toggle. Maybe even popup a message letting the user know the battery has degraded and give them the chance to decide whether to turn it on

But wait, what was I thinking. Giving Apple users a choice? I guess that really isn't an option

Fuck off, Hater:

https://support.apple.com/en-u...

That has been there for nearly a YEAR. You might try READING before you make a fucking FOOL of yourself, moron.

Re:Not sure about this

[lgw]

So now they have a couple of choices:
A. Release software updates that can slow older phones down
B. Release software updates only for newer phones

Back in the day, the norm for software was:
* All old versions ever sold are in some way maintained
* Current verson and one version back get features and quality-of-life fixes
* Older version only get security or crash fixes.

That was just was what "professionalism" in software meant. You don't force people to upgrade, though hopefully they'll want the new version.

These days each new version has a worse UI than before, people are forced to change, and old versions are flatly abandoned. This is not a better way.

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.

Re:Nope

[i.r.id10t]

IIRC... it took my 286 running DOS 6.x about a minute to boot and become usable. Today, with exponentially more resources, it takes about a minute for my Linux and OS X desktops to boot and become usable. I won't bother trying to compare Windows 10 since my only experience are the work machines and they have do do all sorts of domain stuff before being usable, but Win 7 was about that on a laptop on a fresh install.

One of the neatest things was when I got one of the brand new first of Pentium 2 machines - 350mhz with 128mb of ram (late '98). Just for giggles we wiped the drive and put DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 and played for a few hours. Goodness, this is what computing speed was promised to me! If you have old install media for Win2k or NT4, or even XP, try creating a VM in VirtualBox/VMWare and giving it a couple of virutal CPUs and maximum supported memory.

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.

Italian Legal System

[Thelasko]

I would like to remind everyone that the Italian legal system is the same one that tried to put geologists in jail for an earthquake, and tried Amanda Knox for murder despite already convicting another person for that crime.

Let me know when another country reaches the same findings, because I don't have confidence in Italian courts.

Re:Italian Legal System

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about Samsung, but in Apple's case they were outright denying anything was going on until someone conclusively proved it. The reason for the slowdown was to extend battery life on old phones. Apple, for some reason, didn't want to come out and say this. They also didn't want to give the user an option to choose performance over battery savings (since Apple always knows best).

Word verification: brnkfms

Re:Italian Legal System

[AmiMoJo]

The very first sentence of your own link:

"The man accused of sending a group of scientists to the central Italian city of Lâ(TM)Aquila in 2009 to falsely reassure citizens that no major earthquake was about to strike"

The issue was that they told people there was little risk, which resulted in them not taking precautions. They were not prosecuted "for an earthquake", as you suggest.

Their legal system has enough issues for you not to have to strawman it.

As for Knox, in most European countries it is possible for two people to convicted of the same murder. Even if only one of them physically murdered the victim the law considers being closely involved, as it is alleged that she was, is also murder. That's how the law works here, maybe in the US it would be "accessory to murder" or something, I'm not an expert.

Courts Do Not Understand Tech

[TheFakeTimCook]

This ruling is proof-positive that Courts, by and large, (and definitely this Court) do not understand "Tech".

I don't know about Google; but in the case of Apple:

Apple explained what their "motivations" were (which was to provide the User with an OVERALL more RELIABLE experience). Court OBVIOUSLY didn't get it.

Many, many instances of people with NON-clock-speed-managed phones (both Apple AND Android) having their phones showing what appeared to be "plenty" of battery charge suddenly reboot due to a voltage-dip from a sudden spike in CPU/GPU load. Court OBVIOUSLY didn't understand batteries, physics, nor di/dt issues in digital electronics.

Apple has already explained and given the User the CHOICE to "live dangerously" (by electing to disable this part of power-management). Court OBVIOUSLY didn't understand this.

Apple has already mitigated the root-cause of the matter (battery-aging), which again, is a fact of PHYSICS, by offering low-cost battery replacements to ANY of the "affected" phones.

Apple has gone to great lengths to release a version of IOS that SPECIFICALLY (and quite frankly, dramatically) IMPROVES the overall PERFORMANCE of OLDER PHONES, not by removing any "slowdowns"; but by running-around and seeing where they could make individual processes more efficient, and also by decreasing the amount of "ramp up" time for clock-speed in response to greater loads. (one spec I saw took that ramp-up time from 450ms to 80ms. Those things add-up...)

Apple is now supporting SEVEN generations of the iPhone (and about 5 generations of iPad) with the latest version of IOS 12 (the same IOS 12 that specifically and vastly IMPROVES the performance of OLDER devices).

So, tell me: How was ANY of this "Anti-Consumer"? How was ANY of this "In furtherance of a plot to trick people into Upgrading unnecessarily?"

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?

battery conservation

[goombah99]

How many times do people have to explain that slowing it sown when the battery is weak is a good idea, should be the default, and it should perhaps allow an override. But an override is not expected initially in the software because over draining a Li battery is dangerous. So maybe you llow som over ride but only after you have studied the issue more.

Apple and I assume samsung were acting in good faith here.

Re:battery conservation

[Pentium100]

Slowing down like this is unacceptable IMO.

Yes, you can have a setting that slows the phone down to make it use less power. Hell, you can enable it by default. As long as I can go and disable it. If I find out that the battery then does not last long enough, I'll get the battery replaced - even if it takes special tools to take the phone apart, the phone is not potted and the battery can be replaced.

If the phone is deliberately slowed down with no way to undo it, then even if I replace the battery the phone will be slow (though probably last longer than new).

Over draining a single cell Li battery is not as dangerous as overcharging or reverse charging (happens when you over drain a multi cell battery). However, even for an old battery the cutoff voltage is the same, and I presume that none of Apple and Samsung phones work right down to 0V.

So, having an old battery and full speed phone will only result in the battery discharging faster and the phone turning off. If the battery is really weak (internal resistance too high), the phone might start shutting down when there is higher CPU usage or during a call, but work OK after your turn it back on (this usually is when I replace the battery).

So, what Apple is doing is obfuscating the real and noticeable problem (old battery) which can be fixed by replacing the battery by creating an artificial and less directly noticeable problem of the phone just working slower, which causes the owner to think that the phone is just slow and go buy a new one instead of replacing the battery.

Re:battery conservation

[tlhIngan]

If the phone is deliberately slowed down with no way to undo it, then even if I replace the battery the phone will be slow (though probably last longer than new).

The phone is slowed because the battery cannot handle the load. If you change the battery, the slowdown doesn't happen anymore. It's how people found it out.

When iOS boots, it sets a flag. If it boots successfully, then the flag is cleared. But if it fails and resets due to power brownouts, then iOS implements the slowdown.

This way even with a weak battery you can still use it.

Most phones don't do this. You may remember the Nexus 6P as entering a "boot loop" where it would boot, then restart without booting all the way. This is what happens if you don't control your power consumption. It boots, then comes to a part where it needs to draw a lot of power. The battery fails and the power IC detects the voltage drop and triggers a brownout reset. This causes the system to restart and attempt to boot again, where it reaches the same spot, dies, resets, etc.

The fix that some people came up with was disabling the high power CPU cores, which means the phone slows down, but it allows the phone to boot because the low power cores draw much less power so the battery can boot the OS all the way. But now your phone is slower.

There's no real answer to the problem. You either end up with a phone needing a battery replacement because it can't boot all the way or you have a slower phone. Honestly, the slower phone seems like the better outcome as it ensures you have a phone and not a brick. At least you'll be able to make an emergency call if you need to. It does allow you to use the phone lower than you would otherwise - if you had a boot looping phone, you must change the battery or get a new phone. If you have a slow phone, you may just hang onto it longer since it still works.

It goes both ways, really. You can be a cynic and think it's to force sales of new phones (though leaving the code out would do the same thing - the phone just stops working because it can't boot, so that's a far easier way to do it)

Somewhat disturbing

[duke_cheetah2003]

If the manufacturers are intentionally releasing updates that have a goal of degrading performance on a device, yes, that should be discouraged.

However, if a manufacturer releases an update that is just patches, fixes, new features, what have you, without the intention of degrading performance on a device, but instead as a side effect of the changes, the device's performance is degraded, then we have to say, that's ok.

It would be pretty absurd to expect a old device to run the newest software. This is nothing new in the PC world at least, I certainly wouldn't expect a 486 or Pentium to run Windows 10 all nice and usable.

It would be equally absurd to expect manufacturers from holding back updates that may correct security issues, or other critical bugs. Those updates might degrade performance.

I'm not entire sure I'm comfortable with a court making the call on which side of this fence the update falls on. Intentional performance loss, or just side effect of updates? There'd have to be some pretty solid evidence of the former if it's going to be the call. Apple is definitely guilty of this, among a plethora of other shady activities.

What should they have done?

[SirMasterboy]

I mean, slowing them down is better than them abruptly shutting off well before 0% due to a weak battery, no?

What should they have done?

I guess if they made it a popup message like:

"Your Phone recently shut off prematurely due to a worn out battery, click here to activate a mode that will limit the maximum power draw of your phone to prevent premature shut off. Note that your performance will be somewhat degraded in this mode, you can change this mode at any time in the settings app."

Something similar to that.

But ultimately the reason they chose to do this was to limit the maximum power draw so that the phone wouldn't shut off before the battery was drained. This was only happening on phones with worn out batteries and replacing the battery brought the performance back to full. Slowdown was simply a necessary side effect of capping the maximum power draw.

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).

Apple was doing the latter

[rsilvergun]

not the former. They were intentionally slowing the device to make the battery last longer. This was done to minimize the negative perception of a non-replaceable battery. They avoided telling people about it because doing so would hurt sales (which, judging by the results of the iPhone X seems to have happened).

I'm with Europe on this one. Keep your junk with it's heavy metals out of my land fills and water table.

Re:Are updates mandatory?

[TheFakeTimCook]

We know you're an Apple cult member. Quit trying to tell us you use an iPhone 6 Plus. Maybe you have one in a drawer that you use for regression testing, but face it, you gobbled down a new iPhone X as soon as you found out about the animated feces app.

Sorry to dissapoint you; but my current Apple compliment is:

A mid 2012 MacBook Pro (my current computer); iPhone 6 Plus (my current iPhone); iPad 2 (which I am typing this on); AppleTV 4th gen; a 1.8 DP G5 tower (in my livingroom as an iTunes Server and Security Camera DVR).

And, that's it.

I have some older Apple gear, all the way back to an Apple 1; but none of it is in current use.

Contrary to your damaged Hater brain, not all Apple enthusiasts are rich, effete, fashionistas. For example, my main area of expertise is in embedded development. I have over 4 decades of paid experience in that field.

Your turn...

Batteries

[nightfire-unique]

Batteries. Batteries, batteries, batteries. Batteries.

STOP GLUING WEAR ITEMS INTO OUR DEVICES. IT IS NOT OKAY.

Seriously. It is NOT OKAY that a phone that should last 5-10 years malfunctions in 18 months.