French regulators on Tuesday ordered Apple to halt sales of the iPhone 12 for emitting too much electromagnetic radiation, and to fix existing handsets.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230912-france-orders-apple-to-halt-iphone-12-sales-due-to-high-radiation-levels

That doesn’t change the fact that it’s not outputting ionizing radiation. It doesn’t change the fact that the phone would literally have to be emitting hundreds of watts in order to begin having a noticable affect on its surroundings. I cannot fathom that the iPhone is legitimately able to output any level of ionizing radiation as you’d probably need physical chips designed to do that (or have a phone made out of uranium).

Most em radiation is literally harmless. Visible light is a form of em radiation. So are radiowaves and infrared. It’s all photons. The reason why some kinds of em radiation are dangerous is because the photons can damage physical matter. Here’s an image showing where the different EM bands are and what they correspond to:

Anything above visible light (UV and higher) is ionizing and dangerous to public health. Anything in the visible spectrum and below is only harmful when emitted at a high enough quantity to blind or literally cook something. It’s only UV and above in which the photons have enough energy to damage physical matter.

It’s not outputting ionizing radiation… nor is it outputting radio near the limits that are causing it to get removed from the market except under laboratory conditions where its being forced to operate at maximum power that the transmitter is allowed to (by the software) for extended times… which could get fixed by software… and is 10x under the limits that would theoretically be a problem under the levels that it was observed at… which is being tested at a much closer distance (inverse square getting in there) compared to other accredited laboratories in the EU (EU is up to 25mm, FCC is 15mm, France is doing 0-5mm) without changing the absorption levels to compensate ( https://www.anses.fr/en/content/exposure-mobile-telephones-carried-close-body )

And France has been pushing a “beware of excessive cell phone use” for a long time. https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/01/france-beware-excessive-cell-phone-usedespite-lack-of-data/

I was just citing the sources in France that was showing that this was taken a bit to the extreme. When you consider all the rest of it, it feels rather silly and Apple is likely doing a “whatever” and pulling a 3 year old phone from the French market.

Sorry, I missed the point of your reply. I’ve seen a lot of knee-jerking and I knee-jerked myself. My apologies.

You should consider actually reading the posts you are replying to.

Most em radiation is literally harmless

Sorry but that’s just not true. All radiation is harmful at high enough levels for prolonged periods of time. Sunlight, for example, will literally burn you in minutes if you’re near the equator and don’t have a tan.

Microwaves operate at about the same frequency as cell phones and at a thousand watts or more they will turn your blood into gas with just seconds of exposure. That would be a very very painful way to die.

The government has officially defined a power level that phones are allowed to output, and iPhones are outputting more than that. So they need to fix it. Immediately.

Yeah, microwaves can do that. At hundreds of watts at least. The other articles I’ve read suggest that the iPhone is putting out less than 6 watts. Go look at how many watts your microwave uses to heat something up. Imagine how bright a 6 watt lightbulb is. That’s what we’re talking about. Your computer screen probably puts out more EM radiation than a fucking iPhone.

That’s what makes them literally harmless. Yes, they can technically cook you, but only at ridiculously high levels. Compared to UV, which can cause skin cancer at lower levels, they’re harmless. Additionally, unlike UV, you aren’t running the risk that they’ll kill you with repeated exposure.

Create a post

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

  • 1 user online
  • 60 users / day
  • 170 users / week
  • 619 users / month
  • 2.31K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 3.28K Posts
  • 67K Comments
  • Modlog