If this is really needed for heat management, why would you let users turn it off?
Samsung has responded to reports that it is throttling thousands of apps on the Galaxy line of smartphones.
With the launch of the Galaxy S22, users found the packed-in “Game
Optimizing Service” contained a list of approximately 10,000 apps that
were being throttled. This list is basically every popular, well-known
app you can think of, covering everything from games to core Samsung
apps like the home screen. The only apps the service seemingly didn’t
target were benchmark apps, which means benchmark ratings are
inaccurately reporting how much power the most-used apps have access to.
Modifying a benchmark app like Geekbench to be disguised as a normal
app leads to CPU scores dropping as much as 46 percent. The new Galaxy
S22 isn’t the only smartphone with this throttling feature; it goes back
as far as the Galaxy S10.
Samsung gave a statement to The Verge
today, saying, “We value the feedback we receive about our products and
after careful consideration, we plan to roll out a software update soon
so users can control the performance while running game apps.” The
spokesperson continued, “The Game Optimizing Service (GOS) has been
designed to help game apps achieve a great performance while managing
device temperature effectively. GOS does not manage the performance of
non-gaming apps.“
There’s a lot to unpack there. First, Samsung’s claim that the Game Optimizing Service only affects games doesn’t add up. The full database
has already been posted, and only 3,200 of the 10,000 apps in the GOS
database are games, so what are the 6,800 normal app listings doing in
the Game Optimizing Service? Samsung has no reason to hard-code the
package names of all these apps into its game service if it’s not
messing with them.
Samsung controls your phone throttling remotely?
Nailing down exactly what Samsung is doing could be difficult. This post has time-stamped runs of Geekbench disguised as Instagram, which claims that 1) Samsung is
throttling more than just games (really, why else would they be in the
database?) and 2) that Samsung is throttling these apps only some of the time? The
post shows the Instagram-Geekbench app getting treated differently by
the system throughout the day, scoring anywhere from 3200 to 2100 at
various times. The thinking is that Samsung is changing how the
optimization service works remotely in response to the complaints.
Android apps absolutely have the ability to ship with multiple
behaviors, connect to a server, and change how they function via
server-side flags. The way an app works today might not be the same as
yesterday, even if you haven’t installed an update. …
Ongoing wars in, say, Yemen or Ethiopia get minimal attention
compared with the media focus on the fighting in Ukraine. And there are
ramifications on the humanitarian front.
