Samsung accused of throttling over 10,000 apps

Back in June 2021, it was determined that OnePlus deliberately throttles some popular apps. The company admitted to the accusations and stated that it does this to optimize battery life rather than manipulate unthrottled benchmarking apps. Now, Samsung has been accused of doing the exact same thing.

As noted by Android Authority, several people over on Korean forums have investigated Samsung's Game Optimizing Service (GOS) and found out that it "optimizes games" by throttling over 10,000 possible apps. The full list is compiled in an Excel file here, but download it at your own risk.

The list contains several popular apps including TikTok, Microsoft Office, Instagram, Netflix, and more. Interestingly, some of Samsung's own apps such as Samsung Cloud and Samsung Pay are in the list too. Benchmarking apps such as GeekBench 5 and 3DMark are excluded from this list.

While it's not uncommon for smartphone vendors to throttle apps, Samsung seems to be following the same trajectory as OnePlus. There are two issues with the approach of both companies. Rather than throttling apps according to some indicators or metrics, apps are being explicitly named in a list and then throttled. The other problem is that even if Samsung does need to do this, not informing users beforehand can be seen as a deceptive tactic where your phone scores excellent in benchmarks but in real use-cases, it throttles app performance in lieu of battery optimization.

Samsung is yet to comment on the accusations but we'll let you know if we get a statement.

Via: Android Authority

Samsung accused of throttling over 10,000 apps