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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

#271

Post by mrweasel »

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…

> If the DOJ accomplishes nothing else besides forcing Apple to open up iMessage, it will be a victory.

Couldn't Apple just make the shittiest Android iMessage client anyone could ever imaging and the go "See, there it is, nobody wants it"

My take is that Apple has engineered iMessage in such a way that if anyone could just use it, then Apple would be stuck with a massive bill for running the infrastructure, without any benefits. They could in theory charge people a small amount to cover the cost, but that would also just keep people of the platform. WhatsApp made next to nothing when they attempted to charge people and Signal rely on donations. There's no way to push a for-pay messaging app.

iMessage being Apple only isn't what keeps me from buying an Android phone (Google manages to do that all by themselves). I already have three messaging apps on my phone, and four on my laptop, there's plenty of choice on that front.

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

#272

Post by cyberlurker »

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.

If that were the case, why wouldn’t Apple come out and say this is what is happening?

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

#273

Post by anonymouse008 »

> “all that matters is who has the cheapest hardware” and consumers could “buy[] a [expletive] Android for 25 bux at a garage sale and . . . have a solid cloud computing device” that “works fine.”

This type of mindset will be the end of Apple.

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

#274

Post by baal80spam »

abhayhegde wrote: post #209

I understand the evil practices of Apple to lock you up in their walled garden such as iMessage, easy sync between the devices etc. But, ultimately, wouldn't the choice of buying those products in the consumer's hand?

Of course it would - last I checked noone holds people at gunpoint saying "BUY THIS".

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

#276

Post by nox101 »

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.

You realize the world market is irrelevant. If some company has a monopoly in France, they don't care whether or not that company has less market in other countries. Apple has a monopoly in the USA and so the USA is going to try to break that monopoly. Google has already been sued and lost on it's app store market share. Apple's is larger.

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

#277

Post by kmeisthax »

lumb63 wrote: post #113

What rubs me the wrong way about the Apple monopoly case(s?) is they sound to me like “we (the people) don’t want to actually solve the problem by through the totally-viable free market approach; we instead feel that we are owed some say in how this company chooses to develop its products; please strongarm them through legal means that don’t really apply, to make that a reality”. People who are interested in Apple’s…

The free market approach went out the window when we decided software was copyrightable and DRM unlock tools are illegal. Otherwise Epic would just release a jailbreak that installed Epic Games Store and we'd be done with it.

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

#279

Post by hindsightbias »

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…

The 0.01% who hate apple anyway can't live without the need to turn the iphone into an android because it's what's good for the children (users). It's really amazing the lengths folks talk about how superior android on these threads and apple is the root of all evil.

The other 99.9% could care less and I predict they will be unhappy with the results of forced-enshitification of iOS.

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