US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones
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@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@bnrstnr said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
A free market depends on things like this being blocked. The senate is spot on to be looking into this. It is a serious crime to use software updates to intentionally cripple products that people have bought. The market doesn't have the power to fix this, this is why we have consumer protection laws.
If the government didn't look into this, THEN it would be picking and choosing.I guess I didn't think of it like that. Probably because I don't see this as a malicious update, I view it as something similar to Intel's "Turbo Boost Technology." The current state of the device determines the processing power. Granted Intel markets this as a feature and is configurable in the bios, so quite a bit different in that regard.
Well, that's what they are asking... WAS it a malicious update? Or even if it was accidental, did it end up being accidental in a way that isn't allowed?
It's a fine line, and that's why this is an investigation, not a punishment. They want to get to the bottom of this and understand where people are protected, and where they are not.
OK fine, but why does this need to be a congressional thing and not just a federal attorney in a federal court, etc.
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@dafyre said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
Sorry people, you want a 3 year old phone that will last all day, or be blazing fast and last for 30 minutes?
I want my phone to work like it did the day it came out of the factory. At the point I have to keep my phone tethered to a power supply, it might be time for me to look into a new phone (or having my battery replaced).
NB: We just had to go through this with my Wife's phone.
So you'd opt to charge your phone 24x7 rather than have a phone the last the entire day but gets slower?
Are you trolling me?
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@dafyre said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
Sorry people, you want a 3 year old phone that will last all day, or be blazing fast and last for 30 minutes?
I want my phone to work like it did the day it came out of the factory. At the point I have to keep my phone tethered to a power supply, it might be time for me to look into a new phone (or having my battery replaced).
NB: We just had to go through this with my Wife's phone.
I'm totally fine with Apple having a switch - burn my battery to the ground, or super power saver mode.. but give me the choice.
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I liken this to the situation where Apple laptops have horrible performance when their batteries die/go bad/are removed.
I.e. an Apple laptop is absolutely not meant to be used without a functional battery, it's that integrated into the system.
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@dashrender said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@bnrstnr said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
A free market depends on things like this being blocked. The senate is spot on to be looking into this. It is a serious crime to use software updates to intentionally cripple products that people have bought. The market doesn't have the power to fix this, this is why we have consumer protection laws.
If the government didn't look into this, THEN it would be picking and choosing.I guess I didn't think of it like that. Probably because I don't see this as a malicious update, I view it as something similar to Intel's "Turbo Boost Technology." The current state of the device determines the processing power. Granted Intel markets this as a feature and is configurable in the bios, so quite a bit different in that regard.
Well, that's what they are asking... WAS it a malicious update? Or even if it was accidental, did it end up being accidental in a way that isn't allowed?
It's a fine line, and that's why this is an investigation, not a punishment. They want to get to the bottom of this and understand where people are protected, and where they are not.
OK fine, but why does this need to be a congressional thing and not just a federal attorney in a federal court, etc.
Probably because they are considering anti-trust action.
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@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@dafyre said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
Sorry people, you want a 3 year old phone that will last all day, or be blazing fast and last for 30 minutes?
I want my phone to work like it did the day it came out of the factory. At the point I have to keep my phone tethered to a power supply, it might be time for me to look into a new phone (or having my battery replaced).
NB: We just had to go through this with my Wife's phone.
So you'd opt to charge your phone 24x7 rather than have a phone the last the entire day but gets slower?
Are you trolling me?
No, I'm not trolling. My wife literally had to do this (it was a faulty battery). It's too easy to keep a phone charged. Just plug in a USB cable to wall wart, or laptop, or car charger, or battery pack. It's not ideal, but as I said in my post... When you have to keep your phone tethered to something for power, it's time to get a new phone or a battery replaced.
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@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
I'd rather the US senate work on paving my roads and repairing the bridges then grilling Apple of their product design.
That's a REALLY weird and wasteful bit of work to want moved to lawmakers.
Not to have them do the work them selves, but to get to the bottom of why budgets are so stretched that bridges across the US are literally moments away from falling apart and getting them fixed or replaced.
That's normally a state issue. Do you often see this on federal highways?
Huh, do you not remember all the interstate bridge collapses? @RojoLoco had the pleasure of dealing with one in Atlanta just last year.
Of course, Scott Adams did poke at the entire situation with his "It says you don't know what fungible means." quip.
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@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@bnrstnr said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
@scottalanmiller said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
A free market depends on things like this being blocked. The senate is spot on to be looking into this. It is a serious crime to use software updates to intentionally cripple products that people have bought. The market doesn't have the power to fix this, this is why we have consumer protection laws.
If the government didn't look into this, THEN it would be picking and choosing.I guess I didn't think of it like that. Probably because I don't see this as a malicious update, I view it as something similar to Intel's "Turbo Boost Technology." The current state of the device determines the processing power. Granted Intel markets this as a feature and is configurable in the bios, so quite a bit different in that regard.
Well, that's what they are asking... WAS it a malicious update? Or even if it was accidental, did it end up being accidental in a way that isn't allowed?
It's a fine line, and that's why this is an investigation, not a punishment. They want to get to the bottom of this and understand where people are protected, and where they are not.
I have to agree with @scottalanmiller on this one. I get the technical reasons why Apple did this, but the issue comes from them denying it for so long. If they were transparent when they did it and explained it then the market could have decided the issue. Apple covered this up so questions now abound as to why and the motive behind it.
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@dustinb3403 said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
I'd rather the US senate work on paving my roads and repairing the bridges then grilling Apple of their product design.
Such a waste of resources for this.
Sorry people, you want a 3 year old phone that will last all day, or be blazing fast and last for 30 minutes?
well in EU some idiot in the EU parliament has been discovered on porn sites and then all that s**it on cookies raised up, boring us everytime we enter a website. I don't know this for real but I would bet this is what happened.
Also they have discussed in the past what a marmalade was and what a jam. ('couse we call them diffrently in states, but in the end we still eat the right one...).
This Apple this is border line ti me @scottalanmiller is right but for sure more relevant things happen in real life... -
@matteo-nunziati said in US Senate Questions Apple About Intentional Slowdown of iPhones:
This Apple this is border line ti me @scottalanmiller is right but for sure more relevant things happen in real life...
That's a fair idea, but it relies on the premise that the Senate is overworked and has no time to do important things. But in reality, the Senate does very little work and has loads of free time.
These are lawmakers, remember, and the investigation is to determine if there is a gap in the law protecting Americans from monopoly abuse or consumer abuse. This is very much their jobs and honestly, impacts the average American far more than most things that the Senate does. This is actually pretty decently important within their scope of things.
There are certainly a great number of other things that they could be doing. But that's not the alternative. The alternative is "how many other things would they be doing?" And if they didn't have this iPhone issue, they'd probably just take more time off. And it is not likely the Senate doing this, but a subcommittee of like three people looking for some information while other subcommittees work on gather similar info about myriad other issues.
There are two reasons we don't see much work come out of the Senate. One is that they are lawmakers and in theory, we don't want new laws very often. New laws should be few and far between or it means our old laws aren't very good. The second is that there are tons of things that people won't agree on or if a vote is taken something awful might happen. So things that have no chance of passing or might end in disaster are often avoided, regardless of available free time.
