This title is so misleading. France hasn’t banned the device, and the radiation levels could likely be fixed with a software update. French officials have stated that they may prohibit sale and issue a recall IF Apple doesn’t respond to their request. The article says as much:
France’s junior minister for the digital economy, Jean-Noël Barrot, told newspaper Le Parisien that a software update would be able to address the radiation issues linked to the iPhone 12. Apple has two weeks to respond to France’s request, if it fails to do so, Barrot stated that he is prepared to issue a recall of the device, which went on sale in 2020.
Also, why the hell did it take French agencies 4 years to test this device? Even if Apple says they won’t update the phones and is forced to stop selling them, taking a 4 year old phone off the market won’t really hurt them in any way.
Apple hasn’t sold them in a few years anyway. It would only affect third party sellers.
I think they still sell refurbed 12s.
Probably not after today.
Made my day, literally lol’d. Thanks.
It would also affect already sold units. They are giving apple 2 weeks to come up with a software fix to remediate already sold units and if apple fails to comply, they will force apple to recall all the iPhone 12s still in use.
The article says:
The French agency that regulates radio frequencies, the ANFR, has notified Apple of its decision to ban iPhone 12 sales after tests showed the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) was above the allowed limit.
Followed by this quote:
The ANFR said it would verify that the iPhone 12 models were no longer being offered for sale in France starting today.
That sounds a lot like “banned” to me. Considering those two quotes, I don’t think the article title is misleading. It sounds like they are banning sales effective immediately, and will force apple to conduct a recall if they can’t retroactively fix the already sold units.
Honestly not to defend apple here… but does the timing of this announcement seem a bit too convenient.
Wait, they measure the wattage per kilogram of the device? Why does the weight of the device matter? Could they just increase the weight of the phone to pass the test?
It’s not per kilogram of the device. It’s a measure of absorption per kilogram of body mass of the person using the device.
A good way to think about it is: throw a small piece of meat into the microwave and let it absorb some microwaves. It gets warm. Now imagine a much larger piece of meat. It can absorb a lot more microwaves before it starts getting warm. The smaller the ‘body mass’, the less radiation it can absorb and dissipate before becoming damaged. So when it comes to mobile device radiation levels, they focus on the watts of radiation absorbed per kilogram of body mass.
I thought the iPhone 12 hasn’t been sold since 2021, so why does it even matter if the iPhone 12 is not compliant with a more modern standard?
Not great but not terrible.
