Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 1001 posts

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

#241

Post by roamerz »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #94
Nifty3929 wrote: post #44

Apple has about 60% of the smartphone market in the US, and about 25% globally. That's a pretty big stretch to call it a monopoly. There are many non-apple phone options that many consumers easily avail themselves of. And at least one other OS choice as well. All of these are fully supported by the entire ecosystem of telcos. Seems like bullying to score political points to me.

Apple has about 60% of the smartphone market in the US, and about 25% globally. This case is about the US marketplace, globally is irrelevant. And it is about more than just marketshare. Apple's tactics restrict the entire marketplace --- not just Apple captives. Whole classes of apps are simply not practically possible on Android without paying monetary tribute to Apple. For example, universal messaging is not possi…

>>universal messaging is not possible without paying the Apple gatekeeper

There is in fact universal messaging - it's called SMS. You don't need to pay Apple to use it. If you would have added secure to your example then yes that would be correct.

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

#242

Post by stephc_int13 »

Apple top management should have seen this coming ~years~ ago. Both Apple and Google could have prevented this by being smarter and less greedy in the first place, understanding the central role of developers and third party companies in their ecosystems.

Not sure about this lawsuit, I don't really care at this point, the whole process in unrolling and won't stop until this is over, and this won't end up in a nice place for Apple.

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

#243

Post by baxtr »

ethbr1 wrote: post #90
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.

> that apple business practices are building a moat through highly integrated software To me, this is the crux of modern antitrust, and the EU absolutely got it correct at a high level. In simplest form -- doing certain things as an almost-monopoly and/or extremely large business should be illegal, while doing them as a smaller company should not be. The scale of global businesses, in low-competition industries, allo…

I’m a heavy and loyal Apple user AND an app developer.

I couldn’t care less about alternative App Stores. I don’t want them, I don’t need them.

I am very happy the way it is.

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

#244

Post by kstrauser »

brink wrote: post #217

Apple frustrates the hell out of me with their deceptive tactics to create walled gardens while pretending not to. They feign ignorance to keep you stuck and create the illusion of open doors out of their walled garden that are actually broken and they have no interest in fixing. I've been paying for iCloud for my wife's iphone for the last several months because of how difficult Apple makes it for us to export our p…

I exported my 27,000 photos to my Synology as a backup. There's not an inherent limit that makes what you're asking impossible.

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

#245

Post by supergeek133 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #216
Workaccount2 wrote: post #173

iMessage is the most egregious monopolistic tool in Apple's garden. If the DOJ accomplishes nothing else besides forcing Apple to open up iMessage, it will be a victory. The lock-in of having functional communication with your friends and family is insane. Take that away and it becomes almost a no-brainier for people to consider competing devices. And no, nobody with an iPhone is interested in switching to whatever m…

I totally don't get this perspective. There are so many competing messaging platforms and they all work reasonably well on iOS. Because my various family and friend groups use different messaging apps I use all the following: WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, iMessage, Viber, and once in a while Facebook Messenger. I would say iMessage is kind of middle of the pack here. If I had to pick a favourite it's probably WhatsApp, but…

Are your various friends/family all tech-y people?

My "normal" friends and family are majority iPhone users. I'm Android.

I "literally ruin" their group texts. I've seen people actually reject relationships because they don't date people with "green bubbles".

Don't even get me started about work group texts.

I know restaurants where some of the servers have group iMessage chats with customers for early notification about nightly specials, Android users literally can't be added.

Likely not maliciously, but this has created almost a "second/lower class" of phone users that encompasses ~50% of the country.

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

#246

Post by doctorpangloss »

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…

> Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to browser choice

That's true, but odds are they have a lot of e-mails and a lot of employees who can testify to the browser choice decision being driven by lock-in. The iMessage emails were pretty unambiguous with regards to how it is used in an anti-consumer way. (https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...) Similar stuff will exist for everything they do, because they cannot distort the reality that in 2024 their software kind of sucks, and that their customers only use it because they don't have alternatives and Apple prevents those alternatives from being viable.

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

#247

Post by amiantos »

screamingninja wrote: post #156
flenserboy wrote: post #69

The government does not want people to have secure devices. Whether or not Apple's are currently secure is not the point; that they are working to make them so is enough to make sure it doesn't happen.

On the contrary, secure computational infrastructure furthers national security. US happens to have a very large footprint of vulnerable infrastructure as compared to other nations that tightly regulate their Internet. Believe it or not, more secure devices are actually good for the US. There have been several articles and discussions around it and the government has been working closely with the industry for years t…

There's also a news article every few months talking about how the FBI or some other government agency wants to make encryption illegal and how iMessage is a boon to pedophiles all over the world and protects criminals. So, not sure how you can confidently say "On the contrary!"

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

#248

Post by ergonaught »

dmitrygr wrote: post #228
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…

My theory: the problem is iCloud encryption at rest. The solution is to hang this over Apple until they relent.

This is basically the only actual reason for the suit.

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

#249

Post by gnicholas »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #229
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…

The article leaves out a ton over the actual compliant // filed in Eastern NJ for a reason. They must be going for Verizon or Samsung witnesses? If the definitions set forth by the DOJ are accepted by courts, this is a slam dunk on Apple. If Apple can redefine things like 'Super Apps' and 'Mini Apps,' then this thing is a wet paper bag. Personally I see avenues for both outcomes.

> If the definitions set forth by the DOJ are accepted by courts, this is a slam dunk on Apple.

This is a very low bar. It is of course the case that if you assume one party's definitions are accepted then they will win. The battlefield will be the definitions (just like in patent law the battlefield is the claim construction).

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

#250

Post by toyg »

iosjunkie wrote: post #102

This hard for me to understand. Apple hasn’t changed its approach their wall garden in ages. The consumer market decided to reward that model with adoption of Apple products.

> Apple hasn’t changed its approach their wall garden in ages.

The same action might be legit with 10% marketshare but lesive of market competition when at 60% marketshare.

Take golden-era Microsoft: bundling a default browser was anti-competitive for them, whereas it clearly wasn't for any Linux distribution out there.

Post reply on HN