Some Samsung smartphones include software that appears to be artificially limiting, or throttling, the performance of thousands of popular apps, android authority reports. Reports about the behavior have been gathering steam on Twitter as well as Samsung Korean community forums.
At the center of the issue is Samsung software called game optimizing service which is reportedly throttling the performance of 10,000 apps. This list includes popular apps like Instagram Netflix, TikTok, and even Samsung’s own apps like a secure folder and Samsung pay. Crucially however it doesn’t appear to include benchmarking apps like 3D mark and Geek marking which means they might not give an accurate picture of the performance of a cell phone. So a benchmarking app will run just fine but when you actually come to use an app like TikTok you might not get the full performance you wait for.
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A test done by one Korean You tuber shows the extent of the impacts this can have. Simply be renaming a benchmarking app that wouldn’t typically be throttled to the name of a popular game that is they were reportedly able to track the cell phone into throttling 3D marks wildlife extreme benchmark reducing its overall score from 2618 to 1141.
What’s uncertain at the moment is which cell phones are prepared with this game-optimizing service. Android Authority reports that it didn’t find the software on its Galaxy S22 devices, the galaxy S20 FE or galaxy S10E but that they did find it on the galaxy S21 plus. But confusingly 9 to 5 Google reports that the software was installed on their galaxy S22 plus. The Korean You tuber cited above appears to be showing the software running on a galaxy S22 ultra.
