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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

#251

Post by londons_explore »

inasio wrote: post #192

I'm sure there's an argument to justify making it super complicated to move your Whatsapp content from IPhone to Android, but at the time I was having to dump the Whatsapp DB to recover the last messages from a dead relative it sure seemed like a convenient way to encourage people to stick around.

Whatsapp themselves could easily solve this if they wanted... Just add a "backup to file" button in settings. Then add a "restore from file" option in Android.

Quite why they don't do this is a mystery to me - if a user loses all their chats in a phone migration, they're more likely to start using another messaging app.

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

#252

Post by cyclecount »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #242

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 pl…

Or, both Apple and Google did see this coming years ago, have been smart about supporting politicians in both major US political parties, and calculated that the amount of money they could make by maintaining their monopoly positions — even if only for a few more years — was likely far greater than any fine or other regulatory headache it might cause down the line.

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

#253

Post by mruszczyk »

andix wrote: post #105
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, diagno…

I feel like there's a difference between the car regulation you state and the regulation approach being taken in the EU. Specifically the ability of third parties to limit end user choice.

With vehicle repair, I can still choose to use the manufacturer operated/approved repair shops. I truly am gaining additional choice and can continue to service my car as I always have.

The EU regulations allow third parties to remove my choice to live in the walled garden if they wish. So while it could enhance competition for developers I don't know if it greatly improves the users choice, or experience.

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

#254

Post by gnicholas »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #246
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..…

Yeah it'll be interesting to see (via discovery) whether Apple has policies like Google's regarding "words not to use".

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

#255

Post by metabagel »

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.

The article is chock full of examples where Apple prevents competition on their platform or in connection with their platform.

Apple's argument is generally that they are making the platform safer for their users, but I was just on the App Store looking for the Google Authenticator, and the first item listed was a scam third party authenticator which was intended to fool users looking like the Google Authenticator. This would be the easiest possible thing for a giant corporation like Apple to catch. The fact that it is Google's customers which are being scammed could be part of the reason why Apple doesn't prioritize safety in this case.

What we're dealing with here is a really duplicitous company. Their marketing is world class. The battery life of their products is world class. Everything else - not so much.

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

#256

Post by bardak »

oliv__ wrote: post #191

I don't get it. You build a successful product that people love, gain an important position in a market you basically created, offer a closed marketplace for apps to further provide value to your core product, again this is a resounding success and people vote with their $$$ to subsidize your growth. In the meantime, your competitor comes up with their own product and marketplace. Consumers are able to freely choose…

It looks like the DOJ doesn't believe that the closed marketplace doesn't add value to consumers or businesses but only to Apple themselves.

I think the crux of the DOJs argument is that apple is using their dominate marketshare to rent seek and create artificial restrictions preventing competition with their own products.

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

#257

Post by kmeisthax »

modeless wrote: post #122
hbn wrote: post #61

If Apple's iPhone "monopoly" is illegal then sue Google for continuing to make Android worse. That's why I switched to iPhone and have no desire to switch back. Apple's crime here is they made a good product and continued to iterate on it, while Google has churned for years, reinventing and rebranding every app, service, and product multiple times a year and only making them worse so POs can get promotions.

Google was already found by a jury to have a monopoly on Android app distribution. And if Google has one, Apple's monopoly on iOS app distribution is clearly stronger and more harmful in the US given their larger market share and complete prohibition of alternatives.

Google's crime was not having a charismatic leader who could store all the mens rea solely in his own head and then conveniently die before legal scrutiny started over their App Store racket.

All of Google's monopolistic intent was conveniently detailed out in loads of e-mails. They were caught failing to retain these e-mails, which in a civil suit where the 5th Amendment does not apply, means the judge gets to just assume the worst (make an "adverse inference").

To make matters worse, Google promised openness and then tried to privately walk it back. Legally, this is admitting that the "Android app distribution market" already exists and is the appropriate market definition for a monopoly claim. It's harder to argue that an "iOS app distribution market" should exist when Apple is using power words like "intellectual property" - aka "we have a right to supracompetitive profits."

My personal opinion is that the DOJ probably will succeed where Epic failed, however, because of one other critical thing: standing. Epic did reveal market harms that are almost certainly cognizable under US law, but none of those harms were things Epic was allowed to sue over.

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

#258

Post by gbear605 »

gnicholas wrote: post #28
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."

On the browser front, it’s easy. iPhones have batteries so battery life is a concern. That’s why Apple treats them differently than Macintosh computers, which you can choose your own default browser engine for.

Most Macs sold are Macbooks that also have batteries

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

#259

Post by supergeek133 »

LargeWu wrote: post #205
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…

It already works with SMS, though. You can choose to use 3rd party apps like WhatsApp. I fail to see how users are meaningfully "locked-in" any more than an android

Your average iphone user has no idea what this is.

All the know is "android makes the bubbles green and iMessage doesn't work as well with them, or at all".

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

#260

Post by kyleomalley »

Security Engineering is mostly about control and minimizing attack surfaces. Apple iOS implements this exceedingly well, with defaults, while still being one of the most widely used platforms on the planet. I believe IOS gets it right the vast majority of the time with solid architectural changes and not just endless patches and knobs that are hidden and forgot about. This is the key difference of "It just works" verses other platforms.

If someone wants to run another platform, go for it. Of course are shortcomings in iOS (as with any system), but viewing entire problem space of security and privacy, the default install of IOS + Safari could rarely be any better for the average consumer. This is why Security and Privacy is literally a paid feature of the IOS platform, and anecdotally everyone professional I know (who isn't in tech) is using IOS devices.

Personally, I'm planning to blocking RCS and any third party app stores on any of my own (and families) devices -- again, control and minimizing attack surfaces and eliminating an entire class of issues is better than trying to manage them to no end.

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