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U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#101

Post by gnicholas »

tiahura wrote: post #93
tiahura wrote: post #67

If Apple wanted to, they could drag this out for a decade. In the end, there are probably some details of what they've done with Imessage or the store that you could convince a jury are "unfair." It's good to know that with everything going wrong on this administration’s watch, they’ve got their laser focus on vacuums, video games, and phones.

Realtime: I'm actually watching the US Attorney General crying about blue bubbles. I need a drink.

Their brief will surely cite NYT articles about how some Gen Z kids don't date people with green bubbles.

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#103

Post by rtkwe »

bruce511 wrote: post #50
smoldesu wrote: post #21

How do you think Apple will differentiate their case from United States v. Microsoft Corp. , where Microsoft was implicated for almost identical monopoly misconduct? The complaint literally says verbatim, "But after launching the iPhone, Apple began stifling the development of cross-platform technologies on the iPhone, just as Microsoft tried to stifle cross-platform technologies on Windows."

Is Apple even a monopoly though? In the Microsoft case Microsoft had 90+% of desktop market share. (And propped Apple up to create even a semblance of competition.) They were accused of leveraging that position to prevent manufacturers etc from getting out of line. Apple, on the other hand shares the market with Android. Globally it's a minority share. Yes, in the US, Apple has a bigger market share than it has globa…

You're mixing the literal definition of monopoly with anti-trust laws. They have over half the market as a single company and the rest of the market is actually a fragmented zone of other companies so yes I think they are. You don't have to own the entire market to run afoul of monopoly laws they don't require there to be literally only one choice in the market.

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#104

Post by FredPret »

lokar wrote: post #34
FredPret wrote: post #19

Perhaps a hardware engineer can help me out here, but I don't think Apple makes an unreasonable margin on the iPhone. Overall they make 26% [0]. Really quite reasonable considering highly-developed proprietary software is bundled with the device They make a lot of money because they sell * a lot * of iPhones. [0] https://valustox.com/AAPL

And then, they make much much better margins on the App Store.

You're right - I didn't think of the App Store. That's a proper monopoly. "Services" are 23b out of 120b in total sales for them last quarter, but at a much higher margin. It cost them 6b to provide those services, but 58b to make 96b worth of hardware.

Looks like 1/3 of their gross comes from services.

Only some of the services are App Store - some of that money is from Apple TV and iCloud storage.

App Store income looks to be app fees and also advertising.

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#105

Post by andix »

retskrad wrote: post #62

I've heard all arguments against Apple's practices, and to me, they all basically come down to 'it's unfair that so many people like to live inside the Apple walled garden'. When it comes to the law, Apple is not a monopoly. When it comes to competition on the market, Apple is competing with Android and Windows, and the vast majority of the world's middle and upper class willingly choose Apple products. Even if you l…

I think the position oft the European Union is a good approach. It classifies companies like apple not as a "monopoly" but as a "gate keeper".

I don't have a very deep understanding of that topic, but it's possible to regulate those companies a bit. In the EU similar things were already done for the car industry. The manufacturers are required to allow third party repair shops the same access to documentation, diagnostics software and parts like their own shops (not for free, but for a reasonable price). And repairs at a third party shop doesn't void the warranty.

For computers, cloud providers and smartphones similar regulations could improve everybody's life by giving us more flexibility and cheaper products by creating more competition.

In the end apple is collecting a lot of money and seems to just put it on huge piles in their bank accounts. I don't see any reason to increase competition by introducing regulations. Give startups and smaller companies a chance!

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#106

Post by fifticon »

boringg wrote: post #22

It looked surprisingly pretty weak to my non lawyer eyes. I mean I fully understand that apple business practices are building a moat through highly integrated software but its almost a feature for their system and you buy it knowing that. It feels like it goes back to Android vs Apple approach to their ecosystem.

Though the average hackernews reader knows all this, it is not my impression that the average apple consumer is aware of it. Anecdotally, many of the people in my social vicinity choosing apple, are the same people who make their choices based on what they presume the 'cool kids' believe is the 'in' choice. I don't experience iphone users as tech-savvy, as much as I seem them be 'anxious to be cool'.

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#108

Post by gnicholas »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #85
gnicholas wrote: post #13

> The Justice Department, which began its investigation into Apple in 2019, chose to build a broader and more ambitious case than any other regulator has brought against the company. As I was reading the specific charges detailed in the article, I was thinking this case seems like a stretch and will be difficult to prove. Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to brows…

It seems easy to prove to me; anti-trust law is intentionally vague and broad to allow the government to prosecute all kinds of monopoly tactics. Apple had the option to give a warning to users that using an alternative app store may risk security. It doesn't have to block it all-together. Same with Apple Wallet.

Yes, there is a lot of discretion in what cases are brought, and if a new administration comes in next year this may be dismissed/deprioritized. Still, I doubt Tim or other Apple employees will be making many donations to Biden's challenger! (Shareholders might be a different story.)

Even if the case continues, it will be a challenge to win. Apple has asymmetric information and knows what they can use to defend the various allegations.

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#109

Post by atonse »

retskrad wrote: post #62

I've heard all arguments against Apple's practices, and to me, they all basically come down to 'it's unfair that so many people like to live inside the Apple walled garden'. When it comes to the law, Apple is not a monopoly. When it comes to competition on the market, Apple is competing with Android and Windows, and the vast majority of the world's middle and upper class willingly choose Apple products. Even if you l…

I'm not so sure. We are fully bought in to the Apple Ecosystem (Apple One, Apple Fitness, Music, everything). In most cases (like Apple Home), I did enough research and found that it was much more well thought out security-wise and was good enough, compared to the wild west that is the Google/Amazon smart home ecosystem. Again, for the most part, the walled garden is way superior to what I see outside the garden.

Even the app store, I have all my complaints about Apple's arbitrary enforcement of App Review guidelines as an iOS developer. However, as a consumer, I love that I can spend _less_ time worrying about my non-tech loved ones finding garbage in the app store. Yes there's coercive "buy this game" garbage, and tons of it, but I'm less concerned about financial scam apps than I would be for third party app stores.

However, in certain cases (like only Apple Music supported on the HomePod speakers, or Apple Watch only sending fitness data to Apple Fitness), we feel kind of "forced" to use the Apple product when there are superior competitors, because of the (manufactured) ease of use of full integration.

Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly

#110

Post by generj »

I think it’s interesting this is one of the first large anti-tech anti-trust lawsuits that has actually materialized since the FTC/DOJ signaled interest in going after these giants.

Perhaps the case is less complex and this could be brought earlier? Or there were some really damning things in discovery proving other justifications Apple has (security, performance, etc) are secondary to punishing competitors products.

The case for consumer harm is much more vague than what other firms are doing in my view. iMessage incompatibility with Android group texts is going to be remedied and maybe deserves a slap on the wrist.

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