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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

#161

Post by patwolf »

> By tightly controlling the user experience on iPhones and other devices, Apple has created what critics call an uneven playing field, where it grants its own products and services access to core features that it denies rivals.

I once worked on a large enterprise platform. We developed our own applications for the platform, and other third parties developed applications for the platform. We had to regularly scan our code to make sure we weren't inadvertently using internal or non-documented APIs that weren't available to third parties.

I always assumed this was related to some anti-trust lawsuit, but it always boggled my mind that Apple never seemed to worry about that. Remember the brazenness in which they booted third-party screen time and parental control apps from the app store after the introduction of Screen Time.

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

#162

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

endisneigh wrote: post #129

I assert it is trivial to not buy Apple products, easy to make alternatives to Apple products and easy to buy feature equivalent devices to Apple products. In lieu of this what is the problem? If the government has a problem why not say any code should be able to be run on any device? Honestly I’m curious - what’s the problem? There are android phones that are superior to iPhones and let you run anything you want. Wh…

[flagged]

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

#164

Post by hexer303 »

endisneigh wrote: post #129

I assert it is trivial to not buy Apple products, easy to make alternatives to Apple products and easy to buy feature equivalent devices to Apple products. In lieu of this what is the problem? If the government has a problem why not say any code should be able to be run on any device? Honestly I’m curious - what’s the problem? There are android phones that are superior to iPhones and let you run anything you want. Wh…

[flagged]

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

#165

Post by globular-toast »

endisneigh wrote: post #129

I assert it is trivial to not buy Apple products, easy to make alternatives to Apple products and easy to buy feature equivalent devices to Apple products. In lieu of this what is the problem? If the government has a problem why not say any code should be able to be run on any device? Honestly I’m curious - what’s the problem? There are android phones that are superior to iPhones and let you run anything you want. Wh…

> trivial to not buy Apple products

Irrelevant. Monopoly doesn't mean coercing people into the market.

> easy to make alternatives to Apple products and easy to buy feature equivalent devices to Apple products

It's not only not easy, it's not possible. Your mistake is thinking of phones as computers. They are not computers, at least not to the vast majority of users. They are devices that connect to other compatible devices to do telecommunications. It's just like if plain old telephones ran a proprietary protocol and only one vendor could make them.

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

#166

Post by quatrefoil »

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…

I'm guessing the plan is to cast a wide net, then hope that you can dredge up some incriminating or morally ambiguous quotes during discovery. When you have a company of 100,000+ people, there's probably some "haha we're killing the competition" in there, which you can then use to prop up the case.

And then either use that to win the trial, or force Apple into settling.

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

#167

Post by zamadatix »

tarsinge wrote: post #155
generj wrote: post #110

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 Google monopoly seems way worst and straightforward to me. Why it isn’t addressed first and why does everyone seemingly ignore them and obsess with Apple is a mystery to me.

It has been already pursued and is being addressed. There's just a lot less divisiveness/attention in such cases:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...

https://apnews.com/article/google-android-play-store-apps-an...

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-wraps-up-antitrust-case-aga...

Note in some of these were chased even though Google has been less restrictive than Apple (e.g. on the Play Store payment case Google has always allowed 3rd party app stores on Android).

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

#168

Post by 999900000999 »

jocoda wrote: post #71
lokar wrote: post #18

As an iPhone user I am willing (and believe I am) paying Apple a premium for a well curated and reviewed App Store (vs android). I just wish they would stop “double dipping “ and charging far in excess of their costs (and in excess of reasonable profit) to the app sellers.

As long as I have to pay Apple a yearly developer fee so that I can load my own software (that no one else will use) on to 'my' phone, it does not belong me. Yes I know you can reload it every week. Not my phone. I do not understand why Microsoft stepped out of the mobile market.

This is apart of why I use Android.

It's understood that you can install random APKs from anywhere. As a hobbyist developer, I want to be able to set up a GitHub pipeline and then just download my APKs from that without fighting Apple or paying for an Apple developer account.

I'm actually open to buying an iPhone as well, iPhones are much better when it comes to music production, by understand I have to abide by Apple's rules and not be able to install my own software.

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

#169

Post by overstay8930 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #146
Scubabear68 wrote: post #48

The point the suit misses is that one can simply buy an Android phone if they like. Millions of people literally do every year. Choice already exists.

If you want to have a functional social circle in the US, choice doesn't really exist.

If your friends won't talk to you because you have an Android phone, you don't actually have any friends.

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

#170

Post by patapong »

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…

This depends on one important question: What is the relevant market? This is a fundamental question in all antitrust law cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market

If the relevant market is found to be "Apps on iOS", or "Flagships phones in the US", Apple is more likely to be considered having a monopoly position than if the market is "phones in the world". The courts will have to decide on what the market is before deciding if Apple has monopoly power or not.

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