Apple And Samsung Fined Rs. 125 Crore For Deliberately Slowing Down Phones With Updates
Apple and Samsung are the two biggest phone manufacturers in the world. However, each time they release new updates to the software, it makes the previous generation pretty useless. The tech experts have expressed their disappointment over the release of new updates, as it slows down phones because the resource is not enough to handle to demands of the new OS. Recently, it was confirmed that the two giants Apple and Samsung deliberately slow down their older phones in order to enhance the sales of the new device.
Finally, the investigators in Italy have fined Apple and iPhone for a huge total of £15 million (Rs. 125 Crore) terming their practice as “planned obsolescence”. Apple will have to pay £8.82 million, whereas Samsung will have to pay £4.41 million as fine in the upcoming days. The investigators further added that both the companies are manufacturing phones with intention of slowing them down in coming years so that they force users to buy new phones.
This whole controversy erupted back in January when the Italian Body responsible for monitoring competition between the companies launched the investigation. According to the investigation, it was revealed that each update form the manufacturer brings detrimental effect on the performance of previous generations of the mobile phones. These kinds of practice have been suspected by several Reddit forums and tech geeks, but it is the first time that any government body has taken an action in favor of the consumers.
The investigation further revealed that Apple and Samsung are involved in dishonest commercial practices, as their updates drastically decrease the performance of their older device with each new upgrade. These updates are specifically designed to reduce the performance on certain previous models that accelerate the upgrade procedure of the users.
The companies have also been accused of not allowing users to downgrades their software updates saying they are not transparent with the customers. The investigation found out that Apple and Samsung are hiding some important information about the impact of the upgrades on certain devices. This is why both the companies were fined £5 million, Apple was fined additionally due to their battery issues.
Samsung is appealing the decision, whereas Apple seems to be fine with it. Samsung claims that each upgrade improves the performance of the device. Apple has been suspected of such things in the past but Samsung was never suspected. It is first for the electronic giants.
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