Hacker News Reader

Comment by manfredo | Hacker News Reader

> The problem is they didn't tell anyone they were doing it.

Then France should issue fines for every electronic device sold that had this functionality. Except that would have meant fines being issued for effectively every laptop, phone, and tablet sold in the last decade. What Apple did is a near-universal function in battery powered devices with powerful processors.

It'd be funny id Apple disabled this functionality in France, thus bricking many old phones, and tell the French that they made this change to comply with French regulators.

View on HN

Going after big offenders first is just common sense. France did right to go after Apple first since that would make the biggest splash.

Right. And between going after Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and now Apple one really has to wonder if "biggest offender" just coincidentally seems to mean the same thing as "non-European offender" or if there's a reason for this pattern.

This seems like an American persecution complex more than anything else. Americans and their corporations seem to think that regulation is persecution.

I really don't I made it clear how universal clock throttling is to account for unreliable power sources. Every tablet, laptop, and phone does this. Your device wouldn't be able to boot up in cold weather if it didn't. Your device would start crashing sporadically when your charge is low. This is basic battery management. If a phone didn't do this it would start to crash with a 1-2 year old battery instead of just slowing down. This outcome is strictly better than the alternative.

The argument that customers should have been notified of functionality that strictly improves the usability of the product doesn't make any sense. How does extending the usable life of the phone (even if it is less powerful during the end of the usable life) making consumers more likely to buy new phones? Apple had acknowledged that old batteries could not drive the processor at the highest clock rate long before this became newsworthy. Like I said: if Apple pushed an update removing throttling it would lay bare just how absurd these penalties are.

IANAL, but you seem to be trying to apply law as a scientist. Has anyone complained (so massively that it has become noticed) that their tablets or laptops run slower after some time?

(BTW, laptops would report bad-battery condition usually, this is how you know you need a replacement, which is an easy operation with them.)

People have indeed complained - for decades - the same way people complain that their cars run like crap of they never change the oil. But companies can't change the laws of physics. Again, if this functionality does not exist then these phones wouldn't just be slow, they would be unusable.

As far as ease of replacement goes, Apple prioritizes form factor over ease of service. Mercedes vs. Toyota.

There is a reason: these companies aren't just the biggest offenders, they are the biggest in general, on a global scale. Silicon Valley is a powerhouse, there's no way around it.

So punish smaller European firms first just to not give the impression that it's anti-US? Or go after the companies actually doing it at scale and owning most of the market?

What irrationality, twisting everything to be some secret anti-US agenda than to just assume/see the obvious that the big players are the big offenders and they happen to be US players (for now).

> So punish smaller European firms first just to not give the impression that it's anti-US?

Yes, go fine every other company that throttled processor clock rates when battery power supply was low. Apply the law equally and that would convince me that this isn't discriminatory enforcement.

The reality is that this would never be carried out, since effectively every phone, tablet, or laptop maker would be fined. Throttling processor clock rates when battery voltage is low is something that every good electronics manufacturer does. Because if they didn't your device would stop working when the battery is old, close to discharged, too cold, or more. By throttling clock rates, the phone still functions but with a slower clock rate. The user impact is strictly better (a slowdown vs. a crash or not even being able to boot). Every mobile device manufacturer did (and still does) do the same thing that Apple did to its iPhones.

They actually said anti "non European", not anti-US. And it is anti-US for the very practical reason that FAANG and the rest, are all gigantic US corporations that consistently keep pushing the limits of EU regulations, abuse market dominance and won't listen to advisory rulings until years later it becomes law and they scream bloody free market.

It's not like many EU companies do that. And when they do, they also get fined, but they don't cry about it as much.

Well it's clearly not generally "non-European" since they all just happen to come from the same single country, one where it's culturally okay for corporations to do whatever the hell they like, so yeah ... it's not at all surprising that corporations from the US need a little bit more "guidance" to behave themselves in the EU.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com