Back in the days when blue iPhones were blue…
iPhone 12 suddenly came into the spotlight, about three times later years after launch when French authorities suddenly announced that legal radiation exposure limits had been exceeded. There has been talk of withdrawing the model from sale.
The drama appears to be coming to an end as Apple has released a promised software update to address the issue and the French government is now testing it … ;
French drama about iPhone 12
The dispute coincided with the announcement of the iPhone 15.
Yesterday, when Apple introduced the iPhone 15, parties in the EU were working to ban the iPhone 12 French watchdog group Agence Nationale des Fréquences (ANFR) said the three-year-old phone exceeded legal radiation exposure limits.
While “radiation” is a scary-sounding term, but ANFR actually means radio frequency radiation, which is a completely different matter.
Mobile radio waves emanating from smartphones can cause local heating of human tissue. The World Health Organization says there is no evidence this poses any health risk, but as a precaution, the amount of radio frequency energy that can be transmitted to smartphone users is limited by law.
iPhone 12 tested . RF tests at launch, and it's unclear why it unexpectedly failed those tests three years later.
Apple Software Update
Apple said there was no problem and the results were simply an artifact of the specific testing method used in France. The company said it could easily fix the issue with a software update for the iPhone 12.
Reuters reports that Apple has now submitted the update to ANFR so the tests can be done again.
French authorities have received a software update from Apple for its iPhone 12 and are reviewing it, a source in the French digital ministry told Reuters on Tuesday, as the US tech giant sought to avoid any risk of a costly recall.
9to5Mac’s Take
That's all storm in a teacup. Countless studies have been conducted on the heating effects of radio frequency radiation from smartphones on human tissue, and no evidence has been found of any health risks. The existing legal restrictions are simply wrong and reflect a purely theoretical risk.
If the iPhone 12 were to exceed legal restrictions in France or elsewhere, this would of course have to be detected in time. France apparently uses a different testing regime than other countries, and something in the latest version of these tests produced a strange result.
Apple has always expressed confidence that it could solve this problem with a software update, and it is very likely that re-running the tests will confirm this.
Photo: Shiwa ID/Unsplash
