French regulators on Tuesday ordered Apple to halt sales of the iPhone 12 for emitting too much electromagnetic radiation, and to fix existing handsets.
Calling it radiation gives the layman an implication that it’s dangerous i.e. ionizing radiation. This is electromagnetic radiation, just radio waves.
You don’t need iodine, this isn’t going to give you radiation sickness, but it is a little surprising.
Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/radiation/
Bananaphones will give you ionizing radiation
You don’t need iodine, this isn’t going to give you radiation sickness, but it is a little surprising.
From a WaPo article:
France’s digital minister said the iPhone 12’s radiation levels are still much lower than those that scientific studies say could harm users, and that a software update could solve the compliance issue. The ANFR itself acknowledges that its tests don’t reflect typical phone use.
Which links to:
https://twitter.com/jnbarrot/status/1701848091689693576 (translated)
The @anfr found that the iPhone 12 was emitting a level of waves slightly higher than the authorized threshold.
This level is more than 10 times lower than the level at which there could be a health risk.
But the rule is the rule: Apple must comply.https://twitter.com/jnbarrot/status/1701852521247965686 (translated)
The wave levels that smartphones emit can vary during a software update. It is undoubtedly because of an update after its release that the iPhone 12 exceeded the authorized threshold. And it’s a simple update that will bring it back into compliance.
The classic conditions of use: the real DAS
Laboratory measurements do not reflect what happens during the usual use of the device. Indeed:
- for voice communication, the phone statistically emits only about 50% of the time, the phone does not emit when listening; in addition, the average duration of a communication is less than 3 minutes;
- for data-oriented use (internet or video), the durations of use are certainly longer; but the phone, which generally receives more information (videos, emails…) than it sends, rarely emits more than 10% of the time during the session;
- the value of the DAS displayed in the points of sale corresponds to a precise frequency (e.g. 800 MHz) and technology (e.g. 4G) for which the maximum has been detected; but, in reality, the phone does not work permanently under these conditions: it often changes frequency or technology;
- Finally, for all uses, the phone rarely emits at its maximum power, due to constant interactions with the network to best adapt to its conditions.
The real SAR therefore does not often coincide with the maximum SAR.
As the DAS is proportional to the power emitted by the telephone, it is possible to evaluate the actual DAS by measuring the power put into play by the terminal. This can be evaluated thanks to professional software installed on consumer phones
That doesn’t change the fact that it’s not outputting ionizing radiation. It doesn’t change the fact that the phone would literally have to be emitting hundreds of watts in order to begin having a noticable affect on its surroundings. I cannot fathom that the iPhone is legitimately able to output any level of ionizing radiation as you’d probably need physical chips designed to do that (or have a phone made out of uranium).
Most em radiation is literally harmless. Visible light is a form of em radiation. So are radiowaves and infrared. It’s all photons. The reason why some kinds of em radiation are dangerous is because the photons can damage physical matter. Here’s an image showing where the different EM bands are and what they correspond to:
Anything above visible light (UV and higher) is ionizing and dangerous to public health. Anything in the visible spectrum and below is only harmful when emitted at a high enough quantity to blind or literally cook something. It’s only UV and above in which the photons have enough energy to damage physical matter.
It’s not outputting ionizing radiation… nor is it outputting radio near the limits that are causing it to get removed from the market except under laboratory conditions where its being forced to operate at maximum power that the transmitter is allowed to (by the software) for extended times… which could get fixed by software… and is 10x under the limits that would theoretically be a problem under the levels that it was observed at… which is being tested at a much closer distance (inverse square getting in there) compared to other accredited laboratories in the EU (EU is up to 25mm, FCC is 15mm, France is doing 0-5mm) without changing the absorption levels to compensate ( https://www.anses.fr/en/content/exposure-mobile-telephones-carried-close-body )
And France has been pushing a “beware of excessive cell phone use” for a long time. https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/01/france-beware-excessive-cell-phone-usedespite-lack-of-data/
I was just citing the sources in France that was showing that this was taken a bit to the extreme. When you consider all the rest of it, it feels rather silly and Apple is likely doing a “whatever” and pulling a 3 year old phone from the French market.
Sorry, I missed the point of your reply. I’ve seen a lot of knee-jerking and I knee-jerked myself. My apologies.
Most em radiation is literally harmless
Sorry but that’s just not true. All radiation is harmful at high enough levels for prolonged periods of time. Sunlight, for example, will literally burn you in minutes if you’re near the equator and don’t have a tan.
Microwaves operate at about the same frequency as cell phones and at a thousand watts or more they will turn your blood into gas with just seconds of exposure. That would be a very very painful way to die.
The government has officially defined a power level that phones are allowed to output, and iPhones are outputting more than that. So they need to fix it. Immediately.
Yeah, microwaves can do that. At hundreds of watts at least. The other articles I’ve read suggest that the iPhone is putting out less than 6 watts. Go look at how many watts your microwave uses to heat something up. Imagine how bright a 6 watt lightbulb is. That’s what we’re talking about. Your computer screen probably puts out more EM radiation than a fucking iPhone.
That’s what makes them literally harmless. Yes, they can technically cook you, but only at ridiculously high levels. Compared to UV, which can cause skin cancer at lower levels, they’re harmless. Additionally, unlike UV, you aren’t running the risk that they’ll kill you with repeated exposure.
You should consider actually reading the posts you are replying to.
“Just radio waves” is what a microwave oven uses to explode eggs, or a laser to cut through metal.
It’s none of those in this case, and the amount of radiation is nowhere near, but still… radio waves are not all that innocuous.
Radiation, as in nuclear decay, is also a catch-all that includes ionizing radiation, alpha, and beta particles.
I blame the guy who invented radium cream for all the confusion.
Radio waves can still be dangerous.
I highly doubt that it was radioactive at lethal levels, but they do have these limits for a reason. People might possibly have been harmed in some fringe cases.
It’s not about health risks, it’s about interference. They will probably fix it with a firmware patch.
I believe they did in fact merely ask Apple to do that
“radiation” levels are barely outside of regulation. and france has record of testing devices more strictly than the rest of countries. my guess is Apple will appeal, it will be retested and all will be good. the same has happened before (I think 7,8 and 11, but don’t quote me on it)
Holy cow…
To explain something, because this keeps going around, they’re conflating ionizing EM radiation with electromagnetic radiation in general. Electromagnetic radiation of the kind emitted by cellphones is basically harmless. You’d have to be outputting a significant amount of energy for it to have any harm because the photons emitted don’t have enough energy to actually damage physical matter. The dangerous kind (ionizing em radiation) is only UV and above. Radiowaves, microwaves, infrared and visible light are all pretty harmless unless you’re outputting enough to literally cook food.
Here’s an image showing where the different wavelengths are:
If there’s a recall of all older iPhones, what would happen? Would they send everyone the latest? (Honestly they should if it’s really that serious)
Even if they did (they won’t), they can pry my mini out of my hot, irradiated hands.
I think the best we could hope for is a simple firmware update, assuming enough of the right people make noise about it. I’m sure Apple would much rather we all just bought new phones though, so they won’t do anything unless they have to.
Would the mini be included since it’s released with the next year’s models?
what do you mean? mini was released alongside all other iPhone 12s
I swear minis line releases were different times than the regular models for each generation, though it looks like 12 and 13 minis were the same time as the other models of their generation. So I’m going to chalk this up as I don’t know what I’m talking about haha
I believe you’re confusing it with the SE.
Also, there was a late color release for the 13 mini, IIRC.
France have nerfed old Apple products before.
My second gen iPod got volume nerfed back in the day because it was playing too loud for French regulations (with the earbuds that came with).
I’m probably one of the few that noticed because I was using a studio headset that required all that output power to play at a decent level.
As far as I know, the last proper phone recall was when Samsung’s battery production line was regularly producing batteries with a bent piece of metal that could short things out and burn down your home while you were asleep, possibly killing you (luckily it was recalled before that happened to anyone).
In other words, far more dangerous than this.
Samsung spent $17 billion on the recall and was able to collect 96% of the devices within a few months (they continued collecting more after that). As far as I know, they literally had a list of every serial number that had ever come off the production line, and they did everything they could to find each and every one of those devices and get it back.
Some of the measures they used were pretty extreme, including sending staff to major airports around the world, asking everyone to show their phone before boarding, and confiscating the phone on the spot if it was one of the affected models.
A fire on a plane is obviously even worse than a fire in your house… if the fire happened over the ocean the pilot might be forced to crash land in the ocean so everyone can get out of the plane. If the fire happened over land… the pilot might struggle to find anywhere close enough to crash land safely. People could die from smoke inhalation/etc before they could ground the plane.
They also issued a mandatory software update, to all of the phones, which crippled charging on the phone. You could still charge the phone but not well. Supposedly this improved the safety somewhat. Less energy in the battery means it’s less likely to kill someone.
Customers were compensated - but some people said not adequately.
All versions of the 12?
