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> or stop adding resource-intensive features or feature gate them or whatever That's not what's at issue here though. The update was literally along the lines

> or stop adding resource-intensive features or feature gate them or whatever That's not what's at issue here though. The update was literally along the lines of "if (old phone) then { set_cpu_throttle_threshold(lower); }". Now the intentions were good, even if paternalistic in that the newer features were more demanding on older devices and throttling in theory was supposed to provide a better user experience with the device under high demand--freezing for 5s instead of crashing and rebooting. But still it was literally a patch to make old devices run slower, which regardless of intention should not be allowed.

kodablah 8y ago
> That's not what's at issue here though. The update was literally along the lines of "if (old phone) then { set_cpu_throttle_threshold(lower); }". If that's true, it reduces my fear. I know that's true wrt Apple's batteries. But what I read for the OS updates is that they suggested/shipped newer software they knew would degrade the performance as opposed to intentionally degrading it. As for intentions, while they may have been good (I think it's just easier maintenance to keep one running stable branch), if they were that consumer friendly they would have been more open to the user about the harms of upgrading.
- larkost 8y ago
  It was not `if (old phone)` it was `if (worn out battery on specific phones with a problem)`, the specific models with the problem happened to be slightly older. They worked fine with new batteries (and did not throttle), including replacements. Apple obviously was not intending to harm users here (I don't know the Samsung case well enough to comment), they absolutely messed up the messaging by not making a notice about their work-around front-and-center, but I disagree with the precedent that this fine is setting.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    No, it was old phones in general. I had a brand new iPhone 7 that was gimped by the iOS 12 update and experienced 3-5s delays in user actions simply because it was older hardware. The crashes which were being avoided would only have happened on bad batteries. But the throttling happened in all instances, bad battery or not.
    - dwaite 8y ago
      You likely have a different issue then. The battery issue did not cause hangs, it just capped the CPU frequency to reduce power draw. It obviously wasn't an "iOS 12 gimps the iPhone 7" issue - I mean, Apple sells new iPhone 7 phones with iOS 12 on them right now.
jamesgeck0 8y ago
> But still it was literally a patch to make old devices run slower, which regardless of intention should not be allowed. Newer iOS updates allow you to disable the CPU throttle. It turns out that "high demand" scenarios that cause the phone to crash can be triggered by mundane actions like taking photos. If you disallow throttling by law, old devices will just crash all the time.
- wycy 8y ago
  >It turns out that "high demand" scenarios that cause the phone to crash can be triggered by mundane actions like taking photos. If you disallow throttling by law, old devices will just crash all the time. This was what Apple apologists said when this issue first came to light, but hasn't Apple already shot its own excuse in the foot? iOS 11.3/12.0 came out, removing the throttles, and I haven't seen anything about a rash of phones all constantly shutting off now.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Because allegedly those updates ALSO fixed the underlying software performance issues so the hardware wasn't taxed so hard.
    - wycy 8y ago
      That argument could possibly be made for iOS 12, but not for iOS 11.3.
      - jamesgeck0 8y ago
        You had to manually disable it. There was a little bit of wiggle room so maybe your iPhone faired better. But from personal experience on 11.3, if the battery capacity was below a certain amount the phone would just suddenly shut down on a fairly regular basis.
  - dwaite 8y ago
    How do you mean? The throttling* is still entirely there, you just now have an option to say specifically in the detected battery fault cases "please just have my phone turn off or crash rather than having it continue to function (but slower)". AFAICT, this switch won't affect throttling in other cases, such as near/sub-freezing temperatures. * this is a pretty complex issue; "throttling" isn't even a great term once you actually start to understand how the power management works

kodablah 8y ago

> That's not what's at issue here though. The update was literally along the lines of "if (old phone) then { set_cpu_throttle_threshold(lower); }". If that's true, it reduces my fear. I know that's true wrt Apple's batteries. But what I read for the OS updates is that they suggested/shipped newer software they knew would degrade the performance as opposed to intentionally degrading it. As for intentions, while they may have been good (I think it's just easier maintenance to keep one running stable branch), if they were that consumer friendly they would have been more open to the user about the harms of upgrading.

larkost 8y ago
It was not `if (old phone)` it was `if (worn out battery on specific phones with a problem)`, the specific models with the problem happened to be slightly older. They worked fine with new batteries (and did not throttle), including replacements. Apple obviously was not intending to harm users here (I don't know the Samsung case well enough to comment), they absolutely messed up the messaging by not making a notice about their work-around front-and-center, but I disagree with the precedent that this fine is setting.
- garmaine 8y ago
  No, it was old phones in general. I had a brand new iPhone 7 that was gimped by the iOS 12 update and experienced 3-5s delays in user actions simply because it was older hardware. The crashes which were being avoided would only have happened on bad batteries. But the throttling happened in all instances, bad battery or not.
  - dwaite 8y ago
    You likely have a different issue then. The battery issue did not cause hangs, it just capped the CPU frequency to reduce power draw. It obviously wasn't an "iOS 12 gimps the iPhone 7" issue - I mean, Apple sells new iPhone 7 phones with iOS 12 on them right now.

jamesgeck0 8y ago

> But still it was literally a patch to make old devices run slower, which regardless of intention should not be allowed. Newer iOS updates allow you to disable the CPU throttle. It turns out that "high demand" scenarios that cause the phone to crash can be triggered by mundane actions like taking photos. If you disallow throttling by law, old devices will just crash all the time.

wycy 8y ago
>It turns out that "high demand" scenarios that cause the phone to crash can be triggered by mundane actions like taking photos. If you disallow throttling by law, old devices will just crash all the time. This was what Apple apologists said when this issue first came to light, but hasn't Apple already shot its own excuse in the foot? iOS 11.3/12.0 came out, removing the throttles, and I haven't seen anything about a rash of phones all constantly shutting off now.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Because allegedly those updates ALSO fixed the underlying software performance issues so the hardware wasn't taxed so hard.
  - wycy 8y ago
    That argument could possibly be made for iOS 12, but not for iOS 11.3.
    - jamesgeck0 8y ago
      You had to manually disable it. There was a little bit of wiggle room so maybe your iPhone faired better. But from personal experience on 11.3, if the battery capacity was below a certain amount the phone would just suddenly shut down on a fairly regular basis.
- dwaite 8y ago
  How do you mean? The throttling* is still entirely there, you just now have an option to say specifically in the detected battery fault cases "please just have my phone turn off or crash rather than having it continue to function (but slower)". AFAICT, this switch won't affect throttling in other cases, such as near/sub-freezing temperatures. * this is a pretty complex issue; "throttling" isn't even a great term once you actually start to understand how the power management works