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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

#301

Post by creaturemachine »

screamingninja wrote: post #141
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.

Market adoption is more than a function of ecosystem openness. Blackberry commanded a large chunk of the market back in the day, maybe or maybe not because of the value they generated for consumers, but definitely because of the network effect. Several factors at play here. Worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

There was a time when teens had to be on BBM or be left behind.

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

#302

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

Arkanum wrote: post #6
justrealist wrote: post #2

IANAL but it's baffling to me that this one took so long. This has been the clearest-cut abuse of monopoly in tech for a long time. Why did they waste time trying to convince judges that "free" could be monopoly pricing, when this was in broad daylight?

Isn't part of the problem how US anti-monopoly law is worded requiring proof of "consumer harm" which is normally measured in increased costs? In the case of Apple's monopoly, its not clear how you would measure that let alone prove it to a court.

IANAL but that has been the modern interpretation whereas in the past that wasn't the case. Standard Oil was good for the consumer for example.

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

#303

Post by gcheong »

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…

Perhaps, but I'm glad they're at least trying.

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

#305

Post by crop_rotation »

The comments here seem extremely emotional against Apple. If you want a free device then the android ecosystem has many great examples. The S23/S24 ultra are phones which are as good as the iPhone. I have always been an Android user because of the freedoms. But forcing iOS to become like android makes no sense. Android already exists and you can already use it. The onboarding app will even move all your data. iMessage is even going to support the useless RCS standard. I am not sure what people in this thread have against Apple. Doing the things they require will simply make all the advantages of iPhone evaporate and it will be simply left in the dust. If you want android, buy android.

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

#306

Post by theshrike79 »

Fripplebubby wrote: post #287

For folks who don't have time to read a 90 page document, the case rests on specific claims, not just the general claim that iPhone is a monopoly because it's so big. Here are those claims: 1. "Super Apps" Apple has restrictions on what they allow on the App Store as far as "Super Apps", which are apps that might offer a wide variety of different services (specifically, an app which has several "mini programs" within…

All of these are pretty sane, except for:

> Also, the Apple Watch itself does not offer compatibility with Android

Will they force Samsung and Google to have their watches interoperate with iOS too, or are they exempt because they are bit players in the field?

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

#307

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#308

Post by Matticus_Rex »

lkrubner wrote: post #270

It's been many decades since the USA government attempted to go after a vertical trust. During my lifetime, almost all anti-monopoly action has been against horizontal trusts: companies that gain too much market share for some particular product or service. But there was a time, a long time ago, almost a century ago, when it was common for the government to do this kind of thing, for the benefit of the consumer.

There's also a pretty large econ literature questioning that it actually benefited the consumer, much of which concludes that in cases where the trust's anticompetitive power didn't itself rest on government-granted monopolies, it probably hurt.

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

#309

Post by [deleted] »

crop_rotation wrote: post #305

The comments here seem extremely emotional against Apple. If you want a free device then the android ecosystem has many great examples. The S23/S24 ultra are phones which are as good as the iPhone. I have always been an Android user because of the freedoms. But forcing iOS to become like android makes no sense. Android already exists and you can already use it. The onboarding app will even move all your data. iMessag…

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by RNAlfons »

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…

People waved the EU case away with the same argument. Actually it is a kind of iArgument.

However nobody buys it besides their most loyal customers.

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