Last week report emerged from South Korean phone users that the Samsung Galaxy S22 and its siblings were not providing the powerful, lightening fast experience they promise – due to the Game Optimizing Service (GOS) on some Samsung smartphones allegedly throttling around 10,000 apps and games including Netflix, TikTok, Google Keep and Instagram – likely in a bit to save battery life. Now, Samsung has said, via The Verge, that it will issue a software update to return control to users.
Samsung created an app called GOS and used the app to limit game performance, making the gaming experience worse. However, according to what the Korean community found out today, Samsung confirmed that it has put performance limits on more than 10,000 apps... pic.twitter.com/U58AreZZooMarch 2, 2022
“We plan to roll out a software update soon so users can control the performance while running game apps.”
Kelly Yeo, Samsung
In a statement to The Verge, Samsung spokesperson Kelly Yeo said: “We value the feedback we receive about our products and after careful consideration, we plan to roll out a software update soon so users can control the performance while running game apps.”
“Our priority is to deliver the best mobile experience for consumers,” said Yeo. “The Game Optimizing Service (GOS) has been designed to help game apps achieve a [sic] great performance while managing device temperature effectively. GOS does not manage the performance of non-gaming apps,” continued Yeo.
Dubious benchmarking
Worryingly, the GOS software didn’t appear to affect popular benchmarking apps, which are designed, at the most basic level, to measures how fast a phone can run something. This points to benchmarks being very dubious tools in terms of accurately reflecting real-world performance of the smartphones. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first example of unreliable smartphone benchmarking either, with OnePlus also finding itself in a similar situation last year.
Samsung has not addressed the benchmarking issue, however one of the big benchmark apps, Geekbench, has delisted the Samsung Galaxy S10, S20, S21 and S22 devices from its Android Benchmark chart on the Geekbench Browser.
Today we delisted these handsets from the Android Benchmark chart on the Geekbench Browser.March 4, 2022
A date for the Samsung software update to return control to users has yet to be given.
• The best camera phones you can buy today
• Best Samsung phones
• The best phablets
• Which is the best iPhone for photography?
• The best gimbals
• Best phone cases
