Samsung has addressed reports that it is throttling the performance of thousands of popular apps, saying a software update will return control to users.
“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,” said Samsung spokesperson Kelly Yeo in a statement to The Verge.
Samsung’s response follows reports that its phones are throttling the performance of around 10,000 apps, including social media services like Instagram and TikTok, as well as games like Genshin Impact. But the software didn’t appear to affect popular benchmarking apps like 3DMark, which means benchmarks may not accurately reflect the real-world performance of the phones.
“Our priority is to deliver the best mobile experience for consumers,” said Yeo. “The Game Optimizing Service (GOS) has been designed to help game apps achieve a [sic] great performance while managing device temperature effectively. GOS does not manage the performance of non-gaming apps.”
Samsung Korea had previously posted a statement in its Samsung Members app, which was translated into English by Twitter user Dohyun Kim. Samsung confirmed that the notice was authentic to The Verge.
An exact timeline for the rollout of the update was not given and Samsung did not address the dubiousness of popular benchmarking apps being excluded from throttling. One of those benchmark apps, Geekbench, is planning to pull scores posted from Galaxy S10, S20, S21, and S22 devices in response to the throttling, according to Android Police.
Another Android device manufacturer, OnePlus, was caught in a similar situation last year, which it explained as a way of optimizing battery life on its phones. Like Samsung, OnePlus later announced that it would be adding an option to let users turn this optimization feature on and off.
Update March 4th 5:27PM ET: Added information about Geekbench pulling scores for recent Galaxy phones.
