French iPhone 12 drama
The controversy coincided with the announcement of the iPhone 15.
As Apple was unveiling the iPhone 15 yesterday, parties in the EU were working to have the iPhone 12 banned. French watchdog group Agence Nationale des Fréquences (ANFR) claimed the three-year-old phone exceeds legal radiation exposure limits.
While “radiation” is a frightening-sounding term, what the ANFR actually means is radio-frequency radiation, which is a rather different thing.
Mobile radio waves emanating from smartphones can cause localized heating of human tissue. The World Health Organization says there is zero evidence that this poses any health risk, but in an abundance of caution, the amount of RF energy that can pass into smartphone users is limited by law.
The iPhone 12 passed RF radiation tests when it launched, and it’s unclear why it would suddenly fail those tests some three years later.
Apple software update
Apple said that there wasn’t an issue, and the results were simply an artefact of the particular testing method employed in France. It said that it could easily resolve this with a software update for the iPhone 12.
Reuters reports that Apple has now submitted this update to the ANFR, so that the tests can be conducted again.
French authorities have received a software update from Apple for its iPhone 12 and are reviewing it, a source at the French digital ministry told Reuters on Tuesday, as the U.S. tech giant sought to avoid any risk of a costly recall.