Never mess with mobile gamers seeking peak performance. Samsung is already rolling out an update to its Galaxy S22 lineup of devices that would give users more control over the Game Optimizing Service (GOS) feature. This comes in response to multiple reports of the GOS throttling app performance for the sake of better battery life.
While the GOS was only supposed to affect games as its name suggests, it throttled thousands of apps, including Instagram, Netflix, and TikTok. A Korean YouTuber was even able to demonstrate the throttling by cleverly swapping the names of an app that wasn't being throttled with one that was.
Quick response —
In an attempt to quell the mob of angry mobile gamers, Samsung put out a statement to The Verge saying that they’d “roll out a software update soon so users can control the performance while running game apps.”
To that end, Samsung is already rolling out the update to some Korean users. According to a rough translation, the update will address GPU/CPU performance, maintain control behavior based on the device’s temperature, provide a game performance management mode, and bypass the GOS with certain apps.
No more throttling —
The update looks like it’s currently only available in South Korea right now, according to some posts in the Samsung forums and on Twitter. Samsung hasn’t said when the update would roll out beyond the South Korean market, but it should be coming soon since they were quick to respond to the initial reports.
It’s still a pretty shady setup with the GOS, but Samsung isn’t the only one to have done something like this. Last year, OnePlus was caught throttling apps and issued a fix done in response to customers complaining about battery life. I totally get that companies want to offer the best-in-class specs, including super-long battery life, but giving users more control over their own device is definitely the right call here.
