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

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.

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.