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

nytimes.com

351–360 of 1001 posts

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

#351
post #90
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…

Indeed - it's modern day corporate feudalism.

Anyone arguing for Apple's side is akin to saying we should all be serfs for the King, because he takes care of us well and protects his kingdom.

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

#352
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 just want the auto-sync experience of iCloud photos to my own NAS. Paying Apple $2.99/mo forever just so I can have an offsite backup of my photos is so obnoxious.

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

#353
The takeaway here is that when a multi-trillion dollar company breaks a 130-year old law in a way that impacts over one hundred million people, our justice system and government is so broken and incompetent that it takes five years of investigation before anything happens. Probably years more before any action is taken.

Cool, good job lawyers. The latency of your Leviathan ruins more lives than its power could ever hope to save.

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

#354
The complaint doesn't talk much about alternative app stores or web browser engines. If Apple lost, would they even need to start allowing alternative stores or browsers? I guess it would be all up to a judge in that case, but the complaint isn't specifically stating that alternative app stores or browser engines should be allowed.

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

#355

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…

1. Super Apps are notorious for tracking the user across the "mini" apps within it, which is the argument made by Apple for making them hard to get approval for. I'm on Apple's side here

2. I was able to use PS Remote Play on my iPhone even many years ago (pre-COVID). A quick google search shows that Steam Link and Shadow PC (my ATF) are also available on iOS. I'm on Apple's side here too

3. I think the situation has recently changed here as someone else has commented, so this feels solvable without a lawsuit. Also it's hard to single out Apple here when everyone out there has their own messaging platforms. It's not like WhatsApp is encouraging third-party clients. An argument can be made that iMessage blurs the line between what's Apple-provided vs. carrier-provided, so I can see the user confusion and the issues that come with it. I'm on the FTC's side here

4. Who cares about smartwatches. It's niche at best. Besides, there are countless other watches you can use and they work with many devices. I'm on Apple's side here

5. It's not like you can't tap your card instead of your phone. I don't think the phone needs to be just a husk with apps created by third parties, especially for things like wallets. I'm happy to trade away that freedom for increased security, Benjamin Franklin's quote notwithstanding. The payments ecosystem is made up of players charging fees from the next player down the chain, so also hard to single out Apple here, but I can see why there's need for increased transparency (I wasn't explicitly aware they charged any fees, even if I would probably guess they were if prompted). I'm on neither side here.

So based on my biases and incomplete understanding of the facts, Apple wins 3-1

It's worth remembering that this administration is suing seemingly everyone in Tech, in what I can only assume is being done in the hopes they can make a name for themselves. Lena Khan literally said "you miss all the shots you don't take".

I would prefer a more focused approach with higher signal to noise ratio.

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

#356

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?

Generally in the US, if you want to participate in friends and family group messages, it's either iPhone or be left out.

That doesn’t sound like something that’s against the law. A company shouldn’t be punished based on their success, but if they violate a law or not.

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

#357

Regarding the Apple Wallet: what about it is uncompetitive? I can add credit cards from many providers to it, and as far as I can tell Apple doesn't get anything if I add my Chase card and use it with Apple Pay. I don't think banks have to pay Apple anything for their cards to be used in the Apple wallet. Nor do non-financial cards like memberships.

They get 0.15% of the transaction from the card issuer. And they do not allow card issuers to use the hardware on their own.

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

#358
The blue background on messages sent between two iMessage users has to be one of the most brilliant vendor lock-in strategies. It is an artificial form of discrimination. I feel a slight annoyance whenever a non-Apple user forms a group chat as I know that person will limit the messaging functionality.

In my opinion, the "monopolistic" aspect of it comes down to the fact that they tied it into an otherwise open messaging system - SMS. You cannot separate SMS messages from iMessages (to my knowledge). So, the only way to know a message was sent via SMS is the green background for incoming messages and the green background plus the "sent via SMS" for outgoing messages. This creates a disdain for SMS, and anyone who uses it over iMessage. It is such a strong feeling, that having green messages makes you "uncool", especially in the younger crowd.

On the other hand, I think the long-term sequalae of the blue-green message is to push people to use stand-alone apps like WhatsApp and FB Messenger. I think it'll be a hard sell at this point to convince a jury that iMessage is an overt monopoly.

The main question I want addressed is: If SMS messages can be directly shown in iMessage, and are not secure, then the argument of not allowing "insecure" 3rd-parties to integrate with iMessage goes out the window. All I want is Android messages to be shown in iMessage. Sure we can make them green, but at least they will be sent over the data network and not SMS.

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

#359
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…

Some googling would find you several ways to do this (directly on the phone to external storage is possible, but yeah selecting all the photos on the iphone sucks as you have to click one and scroll-select them all): https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/iphone/iph480caa1f3/io...

The easiest way is to export them via photos for mac.

If you don't have a mac, then there's ways to get the photos on a PC: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201302#importpc

You can also setup icloud on windows and download them, then move them wherever. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/108994

You can also connect the phone direct to PC and download them.

So it's not nearly impossible if you don't have a macbook.

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

#360
post #294

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…

Your mobile device is a gateway to much of the world. You seem to think it would be okay for a car manufacture to make it impossible to use your car except to drive to business that pay the car maker 30% of every purchase. I'm guessing you'll say people should be able to opt into such a car if they want but if that car has 60% of the market now it's effectively influencing the entire economy. Prices of groceries are…

Poor analogy. This is already an issue with servicing automobiles. Overly-complicated construction and proprietary tools that can only be acquired by licensed dealerships. Read: Audi, Mercedes-Benz.
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