> Apple said it had provided ANFR with multiple Apple and independent third-party lab results proving its compliance with all applicable SAR regulations and standards in the world.
This is nothing new. My grandmother worked in a lab testing for compliancy (testing the amount of lead in paints, etc) and had a story or 2 of her getting pressured to use the prescribed methodology which was incorrect.
When she refused her boss took it to someone else because the contract with the big company was too pricey to lose.
There's a canyon of knowledge between a lot of engineers and test labs. You would've thought that a company that provides medical certification would know how to test medical products. But the number of times I've had to explain standards to test houses is not even funny
And that shouldn't necessarily be surprising or taken as an indication of foul play. Really small incidental differences in test setup or equipment can mean different labs doing the same test get different results.
I do find this difference to be surprisingly large, it's not like the threshold is 4W/kg and Apple claims they measured 3.9 and France claims they measured 4.1... But what do I know.
France has a huge "cellular EM waves are bad" movement so I wouldn't trust them about this either. It's weird that they are the only country where these iPhones seem to misbehave.
OTOH, the French regulator publishing a product removal from market ON THE DAY of the marketing PR for the new iPhone is a distasteful attempt at raining on their parade.
Worth noting that this is due to the French regulators applying the same SAR absorption standard as the rest of the EU but at a closer distance. Obviously radiation follows the inverse square law so this means you absorb more radiation in France ;)
Even despite this reduced allowable emission the iPhone is barely out of compliance, they will need to reduce power less than 10% or simply get another few millimeters farther away.
Is this true? The article claims that the European (EU?) regulations are 4W/kg at 0mm and 2W/kg at 5mm distance. Is the article incorrect in this? Do you have a reference to the actual SAR regulations?
Sounds like the article is incorrect. The relevant standard for EU-wide regulations is EN 50566:2013, which allows manufacturers to choose the separation with up to 25mm (most vendors standardized on 15mm because this is the maximum separation allowed under the FCC standard).
The french disagree with this standard and specify the limits at 0mm and 5mm separation, which obviously increases absorption. However, they did not increase the absorption limits accordingly.
Thus, actually most phones are out of compliance with the new french regulations (ANFR describes it as "a large proportion of phones" as being out of compliance, sounds like de-facto it's almost all). Since the EU is more of an advisory body and allows individual countries to set such limits individually, the EU has issued an application restriction which prohibits their usage in France (presumably until manufacturers patch TX power limits downwards as Apple will most likely do).
I guess you can describe that as an "EU limit" since it's an application restriction approved by the EU, but it's not the same limit as applies in the rest of the EU, it's a local application restriction issued at the request of french regulatory bodies applicable only in france.
I can get behind removing the ambiguity of manufacturer-chosen testing distances and officially specifying this at 15mm. Or if you think that's unrealistic then 5mm and 0mm also make sense, but if you move the emitter closer you're gonna get a stronger signal and the SAR threshold should be adjusted accordingly. Which the french didn't do, because they're low-key catering to the "phones cause cancer" wackos here for political play.
But this isn't just an apple thing and there will be a patch reducing your signal strength for android too, most likely. iphones just get lots of media play.
it is, and the french are kinda catering to the wackos by letting them tinker with the EU/FCC standards. unsurprisingly when you place the phones closer than normal, you get a higher measurement, and if you do not adjust the absorption limits then wow, it's over the limit! scary!
but there's no particular reason to think that this new, effectively lower absorption limit correlates to any particular health risk, or that it's a relevant threshold for absorption now that you've moved the phone closer.
the fact of the matter is, if there was some major absorption risk from phones, we'd have seen an abrupt spike in cancer rates in the 2000s when like 90% of the population suddenly started carrying a phone against their body for 16 hours a day. The world’s greatest (and ethical!) A/B test lol.
The evidence is already in, just from weight of mass public usage. At least at these frequencies and transmit powers.
I believe the concern is that non-ionizing radiation can still warm tissues, and depending on the frequency, these can be deeper than what normal sunlight or IR radiation would reach.
Whether a few milliwats of that type of warming are actually cause for concern I don't know, but even if it's bogus, that doesn't mean that regulators will not be enforcing legal maximums anyway.
“Cell phone radiation increases the risk for a number of biological and health disorders, including gliomas and acoustic neuroma brain cancer. Researchers discuss how to reduce the risk of cell phone radiation.”[1]
Why did it take them so long to check the device? The iPhone 12 has been sold since 2020, so 3 years. They probably can't check every model released, but this is one of the most sold devices. If it was actually dangerous it would have been great to know it as soon as it got released, it's not some obscure product that no one heard of on the French market.
>Someone with physics knowledge please calm me down?
All radio is non-ionizing EM, far lower frequency then visible light, thermal, etc. UV, Xrays, and gamma rays are in the opposite direction, higher frequency. Radio cannot do anything except minor amounts of heating, and at milliwatts of transmission power and inverse square law that's REALLY minor amounts of heating. There is no link to any sort of health effects from indirect distant exposure by far, far stronger things like radar or people working at AM/FM radio transmitters, nor any plausible theoretical one (though of course one should be careful with raw high power stuff that could create enough heat to cook, as well as the high voltage components that power it). Just in terms of natural exposure we face endless things that cause vastly stronger thermal effects.
I don't know if that's enough to calm you down, or if the entire planet going to massive wireless usage in the span of a decade and over a decade later no discernible significant related physical health effects (mental/social effects aside here, which are real but software not hardware) makes you feel better, but if nothing else don't get scammed by people who lump all "RADIATION!!" together as if the photoelectric effect and quantum mechanics was never discovered. Nor get hyperfocused on some specific tiny but "new" seeming device while ignoring the ginormously bigger ones around you take for granted and never think about (rightly in most cases).
And then if you’re curious to know more about ionizing radiation and the scale at which we absorb it and where it really becomes concerning, there’s an XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
EM radiation striking your body is essentially just going to impart energy into your atoms/molecules.
All of the EM radiation emitted by a phone is very very far down in the non-ionising range. That means it can't directly damage the atoms/molecules in your body, it will just be heating those atoms/molecules a bit.
Wifi is 2.4GHz, 5GHz or 6GHz
Bluetooth is 2.4GHz
3G/4G/5G are in the same kinda range, with the exception of mmWave 5G which is up around 30GHz.
Infrared starts around 300GHz, then there's the whole visible light spectrum, and it's only once you get into ultra-violet around 3PHz (yes, Petahertz) that you reach the ionising band, where the radiation imparts enough energy into your constituent atoms/molecules that electrons are broken free. These free electrons will then damage your cells/DNA.
So far, there is no evidence that anything in the parts of the spectrum that are licensed for phones/wifi/bluetooth/etc are at all dangerous to humans.
Worry far more about the sun:
"Hence, a cell phone cannot transmit more than 0.125 Watts of energy to your head, while sunlight will transmit 43.8 W. This means that sunlight heats your head 350 times faster than a cell phone. In fact, since sunlight is a much higher frequency than cell phones, the sunlight energy is more dangerous (see Equation [1])."
Probably not the kind of physics knowledge you're expecting, but your regular phone probably also tends to be "tied" to your thigh in your pocket or to your hand when in use. If that's fine with you (weight and distraction concerns aside), a watch isn't that different.
I have a Samsung watch without cellular but with bluetooth communications instead.
Can someone eloborate what the difference is between celluar connections and other wireless tech like headless phones or watches? Is there any difference except strength etc.
Never believed it before, but suddently the thought of wireless technologies being bad gave me a reality check and I realized I have never questioned it.
> The World Health Organization states on its website that following a large number of studies that "no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use".
Nothing about the ultra has changed that fact that you still have to own an iPhone to pair it with, right? It can’t really be considered an independent device?
It has an esim and cellular connectivity, so you can leave your phone home on an outing, but there are things you can configure on your watch only when paired with an iPhone.
At the present, we don't have enough evidence to be concerned about low-power EM radiation. However, this does not rule out the possibility that in the future, we might find a causal link between that kind of radiation and adverse health outcomes. What we do know at the moment is that this type of radiation can heat tissues. What are the long-term biological consequences of that? We don't really know. My advice: try to minimize your exposure out of caution, but don't get too worried about it.
As for those telephones that are already in use, Apple must adopt all necessary
corrective measures to bring the telephones into conformity as soon as possible,
otherwise, Apple will have to recall the equipment.
We are mother nature and mother nature is us. It's all intertwined. An iPhone is as natural as a banana (earth -> tree -> banana, earth -> human -> iphone). The unnatural would be, by definition, impossible.
About what? That we formed civilization, instead of being in packs hunting and gathering? Probably nothing, because mother nature is not personified being.
Apple might be able to fix this by asking the user if they're using a case,
Anyone using a case thicker than ~2mm will probably sufficiently reduce the surface SAR to bring it into compliance.
One might imagine a software update that asks if you're using a case. If you choose yes, nothing happens. If you choose no, then peak transmit power is reduced by 1dB (which will reduce upload speeds ~20%, and may reduce range too)
If you’re using an Apple case, you might not even get prompted, as the communicate their identity to the phone already (to show their color on screen).
Readit News
> Apple said it had provided ANFR with multiple Apple and independent third-party lab results proving its compliance with all applicable SAR regulations and standards in the world.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-disputes-french-fin...
In each case it was the lab using an incorrect methodology.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's happened here. There is a canyon of technical knowhow between RF engineers and testing labs.
Why aren't testing labs hiring RF engineers?
If so, were they banned?
I do find this difference to be surprisingly large, it's not like the threshold is 4W/kg and Apple claims they measured 3.9 and France claims they measured 4.1... But what do I know.
Of course, a company doesn't get that large by giving out money with no push back. Just some perspective.
Deleted Comment
Even despite this reduced allowable emission the iPhone is barely out of compliance, they will need to reduce power less than 10% or simply get another few millimeters farther away.
The french disagree with this standard and specify the limits at 0mm and 5mm separation, which obviously increases absorption. However, they did not increase the absorption limits accordingly.
Thus, actually most phones are out of compliance with the new french regulations (ANFR describes it as "a large proportion of phones" as being out of compliance, sounds like de-facto it's almost all). Since the EU is more of an advisory body and allows individual countries to set such limits individually, the EU has issued an application restriction which prohibits their usage in France (presumably until manufacturers patch TX power limits downwards as Apple will most likely do).
I guess you can describe that as an "EU limit" since it's an application restriction approved by the EU, but it's not the same limit as applies in the rest of the EU, it's a local application restriction issued at the request of french regulatory bodies applicable only in france.
https://www.anses.fr/en/content/exposure-mobile-telephones-c...
https://ehtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/ANFR-Data-PDF-SAR-Eur...
https://www.anfr.fr/en/anfr/news/all-news/detail-of-the-news...
I can get behind removing the ambiguity of manufacturer-chosen testing distances and officially specifying this at 15mm. Or if you think that's unrealistic then 5mm and 0mm also make sense, but if you move the emitter closer you're gonna get a stronger signal and the SAR threshold should be adjusted accordingly. Which the french didn't do, because they're low-key catering to the "phones cause cancer" wackos here for political play.
But this isn't just an apple thing and there will be a patch reducing your signal strength for android too, most likely. iphones just get lots of media play.
but there's no particular reason to think that this new, effectively lower absorption limit correlates to any particular health risk, or that it's a relevant threshold for absorption now that you've moved the phone closer.
the fact of the matter is, if there was some major absorption risk from phones, we'd have seen an abrupt spike in cancer rates in the 2000s when like 90% of the population suddenly started carrying a phone against their body for 16 hours a day. The world’s greatest (and ethical!) A/B test lol.
The evidence is already in, just from weight of mass public usage. At least at these frequencies and transmit powers.
Whether a few milliwats of that type of warming are actually cause for concern I don't know, but even if it's bogus, that doesn't mean that regulators will not be enforcing legal maximums anyway.
[1] https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cance...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
> The mobile phones were tested by an accredited laboratory, which allows the ANFR to ensure that the SAR values comply with European regulation.
First you declare it yourself, then later they may or may not inspect it themselves.
This way the government can sometimes save money by not doing inspections, in the long run cheater will always get caught.
But I have to say I am a little bit uneasy about having a cellphone strapped to my arm.
Someone with physics knowledge please calm me down?
All radio is non-ionizing EM, far lower frequency then visible light, thermal, etc. UV, Xrays, and gamma rays are in the opposite direction, higher frequency. Radio cannot do anything except minor amounts of heating, and at milliwatts of transmission power and inverse square law that's REALLY minor amounts of heating. There is no link to any sort of health effects from indirect distant exposure by far, far stronger things like radar or people working at AM/FM radio transmitters, nor any plausible theoretical one (though of course one should be careful with raw high power stuff that could create enough heat to cook, as well as the high voltage components that power it). Just in terms of natural exposure we face endless things that cause vastly stronger thermal effects.
I don't know if that's enough to calm you down, or if the entire planet going to massive wireless usage in the span of a decade and over a decade later no discernible significant related physical health effects (mental/social effects aside here, which are real but software not hardware) makes you feel better, but if nothing else don't get scammed by people who lump all "RADIATION!!" together as if the photoelectric effect and quantum mechanics was never discovered. Nor get hyperfocused on some specific tiny but "new" seeming device while ignoring the ginormously bigger ones around you take for granted and never think about (rightly in most cases).
All of the EM radiation emitted by a phone is very very far down in the non-ionising range. That means it can't directly damage the atoms/molecules in your body, it will just be heating those atoms/molecules a bit.
Wifi is 2.4GHz, 5GHz or 6GHz
Bluetooth is 2.4GHz
3G/4G/5G are in the same kinda range, with the exception of mmWave 5G which is up around 30GHz.
Infrared starts around 300GHz, then there's the whole visible light spectrum, and it's only once you get into ultra-violet around 3PHz (yes, Petahertz) that you reach the ionising band, where the radiation imparts enough energy into your constituent atoms/molecules that electrons are broken free. These free electrons will then damage your cells/DNA.
So far, there is no evidence that anything in the parts of the spectrum that are licensed for phones/wifi/bluetooth/etc are at all dangerous to humans.
1. https://www.antenna-theory.com/tutorial/cancer/cellphone.php....
Can someone eloborate what the difference is between celluar connections and other wireless tech like headless phones or watches? Is there any difference except strength etc.
Never believed it before, but suddently the thought of wireless technologies being bad gave me a reality check and I realized I have never questioned it.
In terms of radio energy, bluetooth is the lowest, then wifi and then cellular.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230912-france-orders-ap...
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/electromagn....
Either humans are unique and non-animal, or we and all our works are as natural as anthills and bird nests.
I’m not sure what it would think about iPhone 12 regulations. I suspect it would consider that a bit of a niche detail.
Anyone using a case thicker than ~2mm will probably sufficiently reduce the surface SAR to bring it into compliance.
One might imagine a software update that asks if you're using a case. If you choose yes, nothing happens. If you choose no, then peak transmit power is reduced by 1dB (which will reduce upload speeds ~20%, and may reduce range too)