Connected devices and your rights as an owner

[speedog]

Connected devices and your rights as an owner - the Apple slowdown issue that has arisen got me a wondering what rights we should have as owners of connected devices. Should not any manufacturer of a connected device have to advise the device's owner of all changes that may affect their device and then give that owner the option not to allow a software/firmware change if that owner deems such a change is not in their best interest.

The Apple slowdown thing is interesting and I do not necessarily believe that this is an Apple only thing but then again, Apple does have a monopoly on their devices. Never the less, I think the correct thing is to give device owners a choice but maybe we really do not own our connected devices - yes, we may own the hardware but we do not own the operating system or have control of that operating system interacts with our hardware.

[The_Rural_Juror]

There is already a class action suit underway in the US.

[ZenOps]

95% of people don't even scroll past a first screen of terms and conditions.

[Tik-Tok]

95% of people don't even scroll past a first screen of terms and conditions.

Was going to say, they could have put it in the terms flashing in bold, and twice the height as the rest of the legal jargon,and people still wouldn't read it.

[Seth1968]

Tesla will throttle down their older models:)

[HiTempguy1]

Was going to say, they could have put it in the terms flashing in bold, and twice the height as the rest of the legal jargon,and people still wouldn't read it.

Not really. The problem is 10 pages of legalize.

There is a movement that is happening where some companies are subscribing to the "plain english" ToS documentation. This is basically a 1 page ToS that is easily readable. And they are valid. ToS are currently written like they are for this exact reason, companies do NOT want you to read them.

[Tik-Tok]

Tesla will throttle down their older models:)

What blew my mind was that you need to pay $20g for the "extended battery" but it's literally just the software. A flip of a switch. (which they did temporarily for free for those affected by the hurricane in the US). I know most regular cars are wired for options they don't have, but they are still missing actual physical components.

[Maxx Mazda]

This pisses me off because my iPhone 6 is slow as fuck ever since that iOS update. Is there a workaround like hacked firmware? Or do I need to replace the battery?

[tha_bandit]

This pisses me off because my iPhone 6 is slow as fuck ever since that iOS update. Is there a workaround like hacked firmware? Or do I need to replace the battery?

Could try the battery, I was gonna try doing this since my battery was shitty anyway, but ending up getting a new phone :)

[rage2]

Tesla will throttle down their older models:)
This is already happening. Tesla’s with worn batteries accelerate slower, it’s the nature of batteries today, less peak energy output as it ages. The difference is that with Tesla’s there’s no throttling, it’s just the battery not able to provide that power. With the iPhone it was shutting down because it needed that power to operate which the battery could no longer provide. Lesser of 2 evils I suppose by software throttling to reduce power demands.

If you want to go even further, Tesla’s slow down as the battery charge goes down. The car is faster at 100% charge than at 25% charge.

[Xtrema]

If you want to go even further, Tesla’s slow down as the battery charge goes down. The car is faster at 100% charge than at 25% charge.

And it takes forever to load up that last 10-20% too. Once it hit 80%, it slow down the charge rate.


The Apple slowdown thing is interesting and I do not necessarily believe that this is an Apple only thing but then again, Apple does have a monopoly on their devices. Never the less, I think the correct thing is to give device owners a choice but maybe we really do not own our connected devices - yes, we may own the hardware but we do not own the operating system or have control of that operating system interacts with our hardware.

I believe in this case, if you go by Apple's words, there is no choice. The processor just demand way more than the old battery can deliver to run at full speed.

I don't know if this is enough to prove Android/Snapdragon is doing the same trick:

My OnePlus One is almost 3 years old now and 20% off in battery life. (Was 3100mah, now 2500mah)

My single core score didn't change at 1000. But my multi core is down from 2500 to 2000. So there is definitely some throttling in place. But it never crashes like iPhone tho. So I would assume that Qualcomm built the safeguard in the SOC while Apple did it in the OS.

[Darell_n]

If these phones run at full speed while plugged in, I would believe Apple. I doubt they do and they just found a marketing excuse to kill them early. Probably had it written out ready to go for the day they were caught.

[Xtrema]

If these phones run at full speed while plugged in, I would believe Apple. I doubt they do and they just found a marketing excuse to kill them early. Probably had it written out ready to go for the day they were caught.

Not an Apple user but there's no way a 5-10w charger can power full load of SoC and all sub-systems.

[speedog]

Regardless, who owns the right to control the experience you have with your connected device? That's the real question at hand.

[Jeeper1986]

when an update happens it kinda forces u to update because apps update then ur firm ware id out dated and some apps would stop working

[Darell_n]

Not an Apple user but there's no way a 5-10w charger can power full load of SoC and all sub-systems.

I’ve played intensive games on iPhones and iPads while plugged in and they’ve always still charged. They get real hot but they still handle it.

[zhao]

Apple's response is actually horse shit.

The first week iphone 5's came out i got one, and i never once updated it's OS until summer of last year. That is about 4 years without a update. It was blazing quick up until that point and became unusable as soon as i updated it. When I updated it not only did it get unusably slow but the one button on it stopped working properly. I had to push it a certain way now for it to work which became extremely annoying to use.

I had a iphone 3 before that, and I never updated it for 2-3 years, and it was perfectly fine for speed right up until I updated it.

I also had zero battery issues and the battery still lasted about the same as the iphone 7 I replaced it with shortly after (if anything the iphone 5 battery lasts longer than my iphone 7 does).

It'll be a cold day in hell before I update my iphone 7 now.

[Xtrema]

Regardless, who owns the right to control the experience you have with your connected device? That's the real question at hand.

If you don't have access to source code, you don't have the right to alter it which means you have as much freedom to customize as the OS provider willing to give. End of story. That's already been settled long ago as part of DMCA.

If you alter the code in anyway (jailbreak, decode and change settings) you violate copyright laws.

The only question is if it's worthwhile for code owner will come after you.

If you want to tinker, make sure everything you buy and you use is open sourced. Of course, somebody in the software industry can probably elaborate more. I think you can hold back on iOS upgrades to a degree but I'm pretty sure you will be exposed to vulnerability if stay back for too long.