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Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

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Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#181

Post by Nomentatus »

DavideNL wrote: post #27
Nomentatus wrote: post #3

The lack of interoperability is strictly illegal since it's being leveraged to expand Apple's already formidable market power (using market power to extend market power is the strictly illegal part) by pushing people to buy an iphone. Cook can hardly deny that's a conscious thought at Apple, 'cause he just said the quiet part out loud. FRO - IINAL but I do know "monopoly" is not the correct term in law, "market power…

Well not yet, but the EU is working on it; The Digital Markets Act states that major messaging services must be interoperable. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IP...

It's lamentably common to pass laws that force the enforcement of previous more general laws, so please don't take the passing of a law as an admission or attestation that what the new law forbids was previously legal. In the U.S. this is going to be even more common, since post-Bork judicial idiocy has ex-facto sidelined much previous law; but the law is still there, and could still be enforced. It just isn't being enforced. Since judges can't easily be replaced, passing "repeater" laws that rule out bizarre interpretations of previous law is going to happen.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#182

Post by Nomentatus »

emodendroket wrote: post #58
pydry wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isnt. The illegality or lack thereof is determined by your level of market power.

That seems awfully woolly. What he actually said is “using market power to extend market power” is illegal, but without any kind of market power vendor lock-in is pointless.

Not pointless, but nothing like as powerful, true. Any lock-in can create market power over a subsection of the market, however small, illegally; but small potatoes stuff is rarely prosecuted. Huge potatoes are rarely prosecuted, post-Bork.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#183

Post by Nomentatus »

emodendroket wrote: post #5
Nomentatus wrote: post #3

The lack of interoperability is strictly illegal since it's being leveraged to expand Apple's already formidable market power (using market power to extend market power is the strictly illegal part) by pushing people to buy an iphone. Cook can hardly deny that's a conscious thought at Apple, 'cause he just said the quiet part out loud. FRO - IINAL but I do know "monopoly" is not the correct term in law, "market power…

If you’re telling me that any sort of vendor lock-in is illegal then this law is being flagrantly violated all the time by everything from computers to razors to Diaper Genies.

Why yes, especially post-Bork, lock-in (and much else) is overlooked in many, many instances. But then, the Sherman Act was passed to hamstring previous "restrain of trade" suits; and was suspiciously rarely used. John Sherman was the brother of General Sherman who ran an urban railroad before and for part of the Civil War. The powers that be serve themselves while pretending to serve the people surprisingly often.

Lock-in isn't necessarily illegal (or even avoidable.) Note too that lock-in that's a necessary consequence of IP such as a patent is legal, for the duration of the patent, and no longer.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#184

Post by Nomentatus »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #54
Bluecobra wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the problem here. 20 years ago you could have said the same thing about AOL Instant Messenger not being compatible with Yahoo Messenger.

The problem comes when you use your dominant position in one market (messaging apps) to strengthen or create a dominant position in a different market (mobile phone hardware).

Not just a different market - on other matters, brief lack of interoperability is okay, but yes, AOL may have pushed the point back then, too.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#185

Post by Nomentatus »

nojito wrote: post #7
Nomentatus wrote: post #3

The lack of interoperability is strictly illegal since it's being leveraged to expand Apple's already formidable market power (using market power to extend market power is the strictly illegal part) by pushing people to buy an iphone. Cook can hardly deny that's a conscious thought at Apple, 'cause he just said the quiet part out loud. FRO - IINAL but I do know "monopoly" is not the correct term in law, "market power…

Apple doesn't have a monopoly of mobile devices.

Please read the comment of mine you are replying to. This was anticipated and answered after "FRO", which stands for "answers to frequently raised objections."

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#186

Post by rahimnathwani »

emodendroket wrote: post #64
rahimnathwani wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem comes when you use your dominant position in one market (messaging apps) to strengthen or create a dominant position in a different market (mobile phone hardware).

It seems like a stretch to claim that Apple’s position in either market is truly dominant given a similarly sized competitor.

From the article:

  Former marketing chief Phil Schiller famously said that porting iMessage to 
  Android "would hurt us more than help us," and another former Apple exec said 
  in an email that "iMessage amounts to serious lock-in."

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#187

Post by bb88 »

I keep thinking that one day I'll buy an Apple product. I haven't owned once since an Apple IIc as a kid. The Mac Mini is rather a good price, and works really well.

But then this shit happens, and Apple shows how divisive and exclusive they are. And then I want to stick with the devil I know which today is Linux/Microsoft instead of the one I don't.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#188

Post by tiahura »

angryasian wrote: post #149

What happened to this HN community. Apple took what was an open standard for interoperability, added "paywall" features on top of it, and its even to the point where people are ostracized for not buying into this paywall. This behavior should be condemned not celebrated.

It just goes to show how much Google is really really hated.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#189

Post by yieldcrv »

ivraatiems wrote: post #68
JasserInicide wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, there's plenty of evidence of women saying exactly this all over social media. Here's a WSJ article over it: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-...

Teenage women, you mean. Typically adults outgrow this nonsense.

Narrator: They don't.

When I think of Hackernews, I think of US Gen-Xers that don't realize they're out of touch yet, because so many of the comments act this way.

That WSJ article's first paragraph and your response suggests they were only able to Poll teenagers.

But

> “Who’s green?”

Has come up many a times. For me in SF, where everyone is so tolerant of everything except the horoscope signs you couldn't chose and your text message color. And many other places in the US. Amongst adults that can't be on their parent's health insurance anymore.

Re: Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'

#190

Post by yieldcrv »

metadat wrote: post #37
ivraatiems wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a Seinfeld character? "I had to break up with her! She's a green bubbler, Jerry: Every message I get, bloop bloop bloop -- green bubbles! Regular texts, Jerry. Not even encrypted. She probably thinks iMessage is a sentence fragment!"

Your take is brilliant, and it's still regrettable people like this actually exist in real life.

There's a guy on TikTok/Instagram doing Seinfeld in the 2020s

Its pretty good, and definitely putting modern twists on it back into the collective conscious

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