AppleInsider Staff
Apple is facing yet another government-backed inquiry into revelations of deliberate iPhone performance throttling, as the Shanghai Consumer Council reportedly sought answers on Monday.
The council has "demanded the cause of the performance and remedy measures as well as complete information regarding the interests of consumers", according to state-run news agency Xinhua. Increased consumer complaints were cited as part of the request, with the council indicating that reported issues were up from 964 in 2015 to 2,615 in 2017.
Apple has been given until Friday to submit its reply.
Several governments have stepped in since Apple admitted that it deliberately throttles performance in iPhones with flagging batteries. The company subsequently issued an apology and dropped the price for a replacement battery to $29, actions which have not satisfied regulators.
Prior to the latest Shanghai request, inquiries have been made by the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and France's DGCCRF.
Apple's iPhones are among the most popular handsets sold in China, now the company's largest market. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus finished 2017 as two of the 10 best-selling smartphones in the country.
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101 Comments
So, Apple can just send them a copy of their explanation and reasoning that was published weeks ago. What else are they supposed to provide? The crux of all these ‘investigations’ is to try and brand Apple with malicious, intentional planned obsolescence. How do they plan to prove that? Experts have already stated Apple’s solution is acceptable and only criticized Apple for not being more transparent about it. As for those asshats claiming they have the right to choose whether their phones just randomly shut down or whether to slow things down to prevent said shutdowns, what kind of “choice” is that? That kind of “choice” is stupid, just like the asshats who want to be able to install whatever kind of crap they want to and use it to justify jailbreaking.
Even though such would be going against what Apple normally does, they could please everybody with a simply Preference setting:
ON = Slow my phone as my battery ages so I get more life out of my battery.
OFF = Allow my phone to suddenly and randomly shut off as the battery ages.
It really is that simple.
Thanks for the Engadget article link above Brisance. It definitely sheds more light on the issues with alternative device options. I do agree with you that the problem with alternatives like Samsung is two-fold, one lacking proper hardware quality controls and two bloatware. Hence I have stayed firmly in Apple’s camp so far.
But this IPhone slow down and inferior battery deployment is a major issue that I would like to see them address sooner rather than later. And I don’t mean addressing by offering a temporary program of ten months to pay $29 to replace a battery but rather addressing by a permanent fix to the problem by genuinely using better power retaining batteries like Samsung, but with better hardware quality controls like Apple is known for.