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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

#671

Post by cush »

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…

Apple and Tesla aren’t competing in the same market

> It’s like complaining that Teslas don’t support CarPlay

It would be like that if the Tesla dash App Store somehow generated $1.1T annual revenue while taking 30% off the top of third party app manufacturers, while using that revenue and their own competitive advantage (not paying 30%) to grow and erode secondary markets via their own first party apps

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

#673

Post by kelnos »

eYrKEC2 wrote: post #580
aabajian wrote: post #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 messa…

The blue background isn't lock-in -- it's branding and fashion. It's labeling the in-group and the out-group. The cool kids with their Nike shoes and the kids who got their shoes from Payless Shoe Store. The Abercrombie & Fitch wearing kids vs Costco or Walmart wearing kids. The sooner it can be learned that a symbol on a shoe is ... kind of a silly status symbol, the better. Same with blue background or blue check m…

I fear that's a losing battle. Forming cliques seems to be basic human behavior. It's not so much about the status symbol itself, as it's about being able to "other" people for whatever reason du jour.

This seems especially true for children, who lack the maturity to judge social interaction less superficially. Not saying adults are immune to this sort of thing, of course.

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

#674

Post by [deleted] »

rqtwteye wrote: post #644

I don’t know about the legal situation here but I welcome every effort to slow down these super mega corporations. They kill a lot of innovation with their market power. I think we would be way better off if we had many smaller companies. When was the last time something truly innovative came from Apple, Google or MS? They either buy a little innovation or suppress it.

[deleted]

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

#675

Post by kemayo »

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…

> Apple itself offers a "super app" of course, which is the Apple ecosystem of apps.

...if that counts, is the suit claiming that they somehow don't let other developers have multiple related apps? Because it seems that something like Meta's suite of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) that all share login data and suchlike should qualify if "the Apple ecosystem of apps" does.

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

#676

Post by endisneigh »

cush wrote: post #671
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…

Apple and Tesla aren’t competing in the same market > It’s like complaining that Teslas don’t support CarPlay It would be like that if the Tesla dash App Store somehow generated $1.1T annual revenue while taking 30% off the top of third party app manufacturers, while using that revenue and their own competitive advantage (not paying 30%) to grow and erode secondary markets via their own first party apps

Why does the percent taken matter? How much is appropriate? Ultimately they’re transparent about the fee, the choice is the developers.

In any case there should be a way to put your phone into some insecure mode and then you can explicitly download any app you want, yes.

But about Tesla - if you could make money, lots of money, selling Tesla dash apps, who cares if they take 30%? The alternative is today, you don’t really make anything at all.

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

#677

Post by la64710 »

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…

[flagged]

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

#678

Post by panarky »

dfabulich wrote: post #568
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…

We do have "Super Apps" in the Western world. They're called "web browsers." Note that Apple doesn't allow alternative web browsers on iOS, so Safari/WebKit is the only Super App allowed on iOS. https://open-web-advocacy.org/apple-browser-ban/ > When you download Chrome, Firefox or any other browser that isn't Safari on an Apple device, that browser is forced to use Safari's rendering engine WebKit. Chrome normally u…

First, Chrome's rendering engine is Blink. Chromium is not a rendering engine, it's the open-source version of Chrome.

Second, third-party browsers use their own rendering engines (Gecko, Blink) on MacOS, while iOS only allows WebKit.

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

#679

Post by lxgr »

Aloisius wrote: post #624
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…

I don’t see Messaging interoperability of the iMessage protocol in the complaint. I see: * third-party apps not being able to send/receive carrier messages (SMS) * only Messages getting background running * blue/green colored bubbles. The background running thing is a bit of a surprise. If you had asked me, I’d have said iMessages didn’t run in the background given it’s load delay for new messages.

Yeah, iMessage completely craps out when sending messages without signal. A red dot and manual “retry now” button? What is this? ICQ in 1995?

WhatsApp on iOS does a much better job, ironically (it just sends all queued outgoing messages once connectivity is back in the background, like every email client did back in dialup days).

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

#680

Post by interactivecode »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #556
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…

I like the app store, I like the restrictions, I don't want apple to change anything about it. I sort of think apple shouldn't try to comply with these sorts of potential lawsuits by making their app store worse, they should just let people jail break the phone and offer zero support for it. If people want to buy an iphone and shit it up, let them do it.

If they would only verify quality and provide safe APIs and paths to safely integrate they can have their platform. The issue is that they are both managing the plantform and (unfairly) participating themselves.

If they had one set of APIs for smartwatches that can be used by them for the apple watch and everyone else for their smartwatches they wouldn’t get sued. But instead they give themselves deep integration into the OS and limit everyone elses access. When you are one of the only available platforms thats not okay.

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