Why are antitrust laws so reactive? Why not have proactive laws that break up companies if they grow beyond a certain size criteria? Ideally, the criteria would be aggressive enough to kill large corporations leaving behind only small to medium-sized businesses. The result would be markets with increased competition, more innovation, lower prices, more options for employment and self-employment, and the elimination of Big Corp's big money political influence.
U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
541–550 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#542Apple 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 also suspect that there isn't an easy way to reduce the resolution that the default iPhone camera app takes photographs at (that I could find) because Apple wants them to be big so that you will need to buy cloud storage.
You mean other than Settings > Camera > Formats > Photo Mode?
Of the reasons I can imagine why Apple might want the camera to default to its best settings, "sell moar cloud" isn't in the top 10.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#543For 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.
I bet the Apple apps have much, much, better background activity/services support. Doing "background" uploads is nothing short of painful compared to Android.
While we never want to compete with core Apple apps, we're constantly having to say 'sorry that's the restrictions running on Apple' with background support.
(our usecase is we have a B2B app that has visual progress reports - so we'll have the same people on a team - the Android ones get their progress reports uploaded instantly, the iOS ones 'sorry keep your phone open'.)
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#544"The company “undermines” the ability of iPhone users to message with owners of other types of smartphones, like those running the Android operating system, the government said. That divide — epitomized by the green bubbles that show an Android owner’s messages — sent a signal that other smartphones were lower quality than the iPhone, according to the lawsuit." Is this even factually true? Messages that are sent as t…
The problem is Apple is corrupting SMS, which should be a public and interoperable standard. Google/Gmail is doing the same thing to email. There’s no technical reason you couldn’t have end-to-end encrypted text messages between iOS and Android.
I bet way more people would try Android if they could fully participate in group texts.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#545For 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.
You also have to buy all apps through Apple's app store to natively download to a device. The Digital Markets Act addressed something similar, requesting that developers can sell through alternate marketplaces. Apple came back with a proposal to (1) stick with the status quo with 30 percent commission on sales, (2) reduce commission to 17 percent with a 50 cent charge on downloads over a million, (3) sell through a competing app store and pay the download fee every time. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/technology/app-store-euro....)
I've designed several apps (Fitstar, Fitbit, theSkimm) that were dependent on the Apple ecosystem. While it's a huge tax to comply with their rules, they also do a TON to help developers succeed, especially early on. They maintain components, provide developer tools, build entire languages, design new paradigms, and ensure quality. I've had a respect for the tax on a service they provide to both developers and end users. At this point though - they're acting as a monopoly, and it feels anti-competitive.
It's not just the developer tax that's a problem. Hiding behind a veil of privacy also doesn't forgive the introduction of "dark pattern" end user experiences - such as the inability to have a group chat with non Apple users. And no non-Apple share links on Apple Photo albums. These create digital "haves" vs "have-nots" - and not everyone in the world can afford to buy physical Apple devices. There must be protocols that allow information to be more interoperable so people have optionality and control over their digital identities.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#546For 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…
Yet the most important issue for many is missing (unless something changed recently) - inability to access filtered cesspool of scam, malware and annoyance that modern ad-infested internet is.
Jihad against anything actually working well (ie firefox and ublock origin) due to to be polite dubious reasons. Apple gatekeeping is just a move to ads for themselves, it was already multibillion business for them last year. Thats monopolistic behavior in plain sight.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#547It 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.
Monopoly law needs to be reinterpreted in light of network effects. It's not merely the integration which is a problem, it's how that + network effects gives apple undue market power to dictate terms to its users, devs, etc. Being a middleman between users and devs, say, takes on a different character when you're a 2-3T biz at the heart of the economy.
We need proactive antitrust laws that break up companies beyond a certain size criteria. There are many markets beyond the tech sector that need a breakup. But no, lets wait until there is enough outrage before the DoJ laggardly assembles a case against them.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#548This quote is pretty consistent with my take on what Apple has been up to:
> In the end , Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple's financial and business interests .
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#549For 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…
The messaging interop point is probably DOA since Apple has stated that they will be adding RCS support to iMessage. The smartwatch point is interesting and not an argument I've seen made before, but it's a very good example of Apple's vendor lock-in.
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Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#550Apple 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…
It's amusing how often you see this sort of substantive claim which can be trivially disproven. "Apple operates a walled garden! I can't get my photos out of iCloud!" [half a dozen ways to get the photos off the phone are proffered] "Well. Nevertheless!"
But none of them work like iCloud. No one but Apple is allowed to make an app that reliably ships your photos to the cloud.