{"id":28095,"date":"2020-02-10T16:00:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T21:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=28095"},"modified":"2020-02-10T16:01:31","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T21:01:31","slug":"france-fines-apple-for-throttling-iphones-without-telling-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/10\/france-fines-apple-for-throttling-iphones-without-telling-users\/","title":{"rendered":"France Fines Apple for Throttling iPhones Without Telling Users"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romain Dillet<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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France’s competition watchdog DGCCRF announced earlier today that Apple will pay a $27.4 million (€25 million) fine due to an iOS update that capped performance of aging devices. The company will also have to display a statement on its website for a month.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Many users may have noticed that their phone would get slower when they play a game, for instance. But they didn’t know that replacing the battery would fix that. Some users may have bought new phones even though their existing phone was working fine.<\/p>\n

France’s DGCCRF also notes that iPhone users can’t downgrade to a previous version of iOS, which means that iPhone users had no way to lift the performance capping feature.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I don’t know — or, frankly, care — if €25 million is a fine that is too small, too big, or not worth issuing at all. What I do know is that it is ridiculous to defend Apple’s decision not to explain this to users at the time.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Of course<\/em> it would not have been easy for Apple to explain why this decision made sense — Warwick alone spent about a thousand words retelling this saga. But it would have been right<\/em>, and avoided accusations that the company was being underhanded and sneaky.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

To be clear, there’s no indication that this wasn’t publicized at the time to avoid poor PR; that’s something Warwick implied. If anything, this seems like an example of stupidity, not malice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

It’s such an odd story. Recall that, after it became clear what was happening, Tim Cook said<\/a> that people who didn’t know about the throttling weren’t “paying attention.” I’ve seen no evidence<\/a> that anything was ever reported that people could have paid attention to. Then Apple retroactively added<\/a> “improves power management” to the iOS 10.2.1 release notes, still without any indication that this meant it might slow down your phone.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n