Back in 2018, the Italian investigation found that software updates “significantly reduced performance”, accelerating new acquisitions:

Apple & Samsung are being fined €10m and €5m respectively in Italy for the “planned obsolescence” of their smartphones!
….
In a statement the antitrust watchdog said “Apple & Samsung implemented dishonest commercial practices” and that operating system updates “caused serious malfunctions and significantly reduced performance, thus accelerating phones’ substitution”

I’m probably not the only one who noticed that with each update of the operating system, the applications ran slower and slowe. I used to own Samsung Galaxy: S2, S3, S4 and S5 … but since I started using Xiaomi and Huawei, I have given up any other brand, especially Samsung.

Back in time, somewhere in 2016, I tested two phones of the same generation: Xiaomi Mi4 and Samsung Galaxy S5, the differences were extraordinarily! On Samsung I could barely use anything, it had an impossible lag, while Xiaomi was doing very well, without any problems, and especially since it took extraordinarily beautiful pictures compared to the Galaxy S5!

From that moment I gave up buying too “popular” phones and I switched exclusively to Xiaomi and Huawei. From that moment I was very happy with my mobile phones and I had no problems after any software update!

But going back to the topic of the article, it seems that Apple did not escape only with such a small fine, because the new fine received in 2020 increased exponentially to $500 million:

Apple Inc has agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle litigation accusing it of quietly slowing down older iPhones as it launched new models, to induce owners to buy replacement phones or batteries.

…

The preliminary proposed class-action settlement was disclosed on Friday night and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphones-settlement-idUKKBN20P2E7?edition-redirect=uk

Such behaviors in the market are still quite old and are repeated because the legislation allows corporations to steal their customers as long as they do not get caught in the scam.
And for the curious, I suggest you see a very good documentary on this topic: The Lightbulb Conspiracy:

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