The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that it would consult with the Ministry of Economic Affairs about the possibility of asking mobile phone manufacturers to disclose the information of the central processing units (CPU) they use in their devices.
The announcement followed reported controversies surrounding the chips used in Apple Inc’s iPhone 6S, which has been available for sale in Taiwan since Friday last week.
Apple’s latest innovation was reported to have its CPUs manufactured by both Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and Samsung.
However, some Apple fans said the chips produced by TSMC fare better than those made by its South Korean competitor in terms of energy efficiency and heat dissipation.
Because of the alleged difference, the media in Hong Kong reported that some iPhone users there have demanded they be allowed to return the iPhone 6S installed with Samsung chips in exchange for those equipped with chips made by TSMC, fearing that the information might affect the price they can sell their iPhone 6S to second-hand mobile phone retailers.
Some netizens in Hong Kong further claimed that 60 percent of the new Apple smartphones sold in the US and Japan are equipped with TSMC chips, but the percentage in Hong Kong is less than 40 percent. They said that 80 percent of the phones sold in Taiwan are equipped with chips made by Samsung.
A resolution proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) and three other DPP lawmakers yesterday said the NCC should ask the manufacturers to disclose the information on the CPUs and other key components in the mobile phones.
When consumers are asked to sign a mobile phone contract, the service carriers should provide important details of the contract so customers’ interests can be protected, the resolution said.
NCC Chairperson Howard Shyr (石世豪) said consumers would pick an iPhone 6S with better performance if they were all sold at the same price. Because Apple is an international corporation, Shyr said the NCC would need to confer the proposal with the ministry and produce possible solutions within three months.
Yeh’s proposal was not welcomed by netizens.
“Using his logic, the specification of any part in any product should be disclosed to the public,” netizen Yuan Jo-shun said. “So does that mean we will need a case as big as a coffin to print this information, with a little iPhone lying there?”
Apple also issued a statement to dismiss the rumors.
“Certain manufactured lab tests, which run the processors with a continuous heavy workload until the battery depletes are not representative of real-world usage, since they spend an unrealistic amount of time at the highest CPU performance state,” the company said.
“It is a misleading way to measure real-world battery life. Our testing and customer data show the actual battery life of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus vary within just 2 percent to 3 percent of each other,” the company said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS