Samsung published a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page on its South Korean website addressing some of the concerns around its Game Optimizing Service (GOS), which was at the heart of recent controversy around the company.
For those who haven’t followed the GOS debacle, the short version is that Samsung’s optimization software throttled performance across thousands of apps (one list put the total at 10,000). Following the outcry, Samsung said it would issue an update that allowed customers to disable GOS on their Galaxy smartphones.
The GOS issue impacted Galaxy S series smartphones dating back to the S10 line and led to Geekbench delisting performance scores for those devices for “benchmark manipulation.” The debacle has even sparked a preliminary investigation from South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission into Samsung’s Galaxy S22 advertising.
Fast forward to now, and the new FAQ posted by Samsung seeks to explain away some of the (admittedly well-earned) ire against the company.
Spotted by Android Authority and machine translated from Korean, the FAQ reiterates the incoming software update and clarifies it will add a performance priority toggle. Samsung says that enabling the toggle will bring a performance boost of “approximately 10 frames” based on one game.
Interestingly, Samsung also claims in the FAQ that the list of 10,000 apps supposedly throttled by GOS was actually for determining whether an installed app was a game or not. Specifically, Samsung claims GOS “does not work with regular apps other than games.”
The FAQ page also addressed the issue of GOS not impacting performance for benchmarking apps. In short, Samsung says that benchmark tools aren’t games, and therefore GOS doesn’t apply — not a great line of reasoning overall.
Finally, and perhaps one of the few positive revelations in the FAQ, is Samsung’s commitment to offering free repairs to phones even if users turn off GOS (assuming the phone is still under warranty, of course). That should alleviate any concerns about turning off GOS.
Those interested can check out the full FAQ here.
Source: Samsung Via: Android Authority
