Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

411–420 of 1001 posts

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

#411

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…

> easy to make alternatives to Apple products Please, go do it. You'll be very rich very quick and I'll eagerly buy your products once you succeed. Unfortunately you'll find out it's not actually easy at all when you realize that consumers care about weight, size, temperature and battery life which are all things apple excels at. Their hardware is really quite good, unfortunately the software is horribly crippled.

"Easy" means there are no barriers to entry, not that it's trivial to make a good product.

In particular, there are no barriers to entry imposed by Apple. For any product Apple sell, there are numerous competing products in the same category. Apple's versions uniformly dominate third party rankings of these products, but all that means is that they're good at what they do.

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

#412

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…

> 3.

Every single group chat that I use on a day-to-day basis has a non iPhone participant. The biggest argument against the way apple treats SMS vs iMessage I see is people feel ostracized for having green bubbles. I just don't understand why this rises to anti-trust.

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

#413

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…

> Apple itself offers a "super app" of course, which is the Apple ecosystem of apps. Not sure I buy this point. Competitors can also offer their own suite of apps. Apple has an advantage that they can come pre-installed. But they aren't really building super-apps, just a variety of default apps - nothing stops third parties from offering multiple apps on the platform, that is actually a common thing to do.

Having an app that competes with an existing Apple app is considered a duplicate app and you can be rejected because of it.

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

#414
post #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.

[flagged]

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

#415

It's so funny I'm gonna go out and say it, this is only because Microsoft threw its weight into Epics lawsuit. I believe, entirely, that Microsoft is the most important corporation in America, by far. In that anything they want, will get done. this is why the senators turned around on Sony claiming MS buying ActiBlizzKing was monopolistic and started threatening Sony instead, this is why Bill Gates gets to sit with X…

To say nothing of the fact that Github is the cornerstone of the open source world, and Microsoft owns it.

Microsoft bought it. Microsoft is also allegedly using private repos to train AI, Microsoft is not a benevolent entity.

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

#416

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.

This is hideous though. Why should someone's preference for a mobile phone, chosen for their convenience, hinder them from texting those they care about?

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

#417

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?

I think no because an android compatible watch would be compatible with any other android phone, not only Google Watch Google Phone.

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

#420

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…

I just don’t understand the appeal of “Super Apps”. Do users really want to hire a taxi with the same application they use to message their friends, and have that be the same application they use to buy household goods, and have that be the same application they use to control their garage door? It doesn’t make sense to me. These are totally different tasks. Why would a user want to use the same app to do them?

Imagine the extreme end result of this: You buy a phone, and it’s OS comes with only one app installed: The Super App which you launch and do everything through it. How is that Super App not in fact the OS at that point?

Post reply on HN