My biggest complaint is that they don't even let you send photos over bluetooth to a non-apple device! There is no way to share files wirelessly.
U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#852Apple 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!"
It is as much about perception and convenience as anything else. When I talk about smartphones with non-technical people, the top complaint (against both Apple and Google) is that they try to trap customers by making it hard to move your stuff from iOS to Android or vice versa. They're running into issues for different reasons (forgotten passwords, data migration tool not getting everything) but it's fundamentally the same complaint: why does this require some specific procedure instead of just working the way I expect it to work? This may just be the grumpy nerd in me talking, but all of this would be a lot easier if mobile apps dealing with interchangeable things like photos and text saved user data to files instead of inscrutable databases by default.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#853For 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 look important to me, but I've been particularly frustrated recently by the smartwatch issue. I've been a Fitbit user for several years and briefly tried an Apple Watch before returning it and resume Fitbit use— I had a few issues with the Apple Watch, most notably around battery life. But that brief experience showed me really starkly how much Apple is able to lock out third parties from doing things th…
My Apple Watch tracks Afib (atrial fibrillation) much more consistently and reliably than my Charge 5 did.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#854The 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…
You cannot separate SMS messages from iMessages (to my knowledge)
I have only had an iphone for a few months, and I haven’t tried it yet, but when I enabled imessage I had the option of using an email address instead of my phone number. and From an android users perspective texting an iphone user is terrible, because they are incapable of sending quality photos, i suspect they just default to over compression for mms
…on a side note, the overall iphone experience is not great, everything just feels like it is trying to stop me from doing what i want. Not that android was all that better, but I definitely felt a bit more free with even simple things like how copy/paste works.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#855"Super Apps" raise two technical issues:
1. Allowing such apps to handle their own payment processing across multiple applications. This means Apple doesn't get to force everyone through the in-app purchasing funnel and collect a transaction fee. There could be an exception made that the fee is waived for purchasing physical goods and services through the super-app. This shouldn't be a hard change. The big fight will be over selling digital content and what is a fair percentage.
2. Allow users to install binary plugins or extensions into a single app without going through an AppStore review. Apple does not currently allow this unless the plugins or extensions are web-based and can run inside the webkit sandbox.
They'll have a strong argument that forcing them to allow running arbitrary, unreviewed code will open up big security holes.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#856The 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…
How about when you send a video or photos between iPhone and android the quality is abysmal. That is apples doing.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#857The 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…
You cannot separate SMS messages from iMessages (to my knowledge) I have only had an iphone for a few months, and I haven’t tried it yet, but when I enabled imessage I had the option of using an email address instead of my phone number. and From an android users perspective texting an iphone user is terrible, because they are incapable of sending quality photos, i suspect they just default to over compression for mms…
I’m actually thinking I will switch after my iPhone 8 packs it in. iPhone is now about extracting money not providing the best phone. Every app has an in app purchase. Let us have root to our iPhones so we can install open source projects.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#858> In 2010, a top Apple executive emailed Apple’s then-CEO about an ad for the new Kindle e-reader. The ad began with a woman who was using her iPhone to buy and read books on the Kindle app. She then switches to an Android smartphone and continues to read her books using the same Kindle app. The executive wrote to Jobs: one “message that can’t be missed is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android. Not fun to…
This behavior is so overt that I am constantly baffled that otherwise rational people continue to make up excuses for Apple. See also this article where they overtly state that the green bubble thing is deliberately intended to cause lock-in: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an... I have been called a "violent criminal" on this very site because I criticized Apple's decision to remotely brick…
The green bubble complaining must have the lowest level of credibility among all the anti-apple complaints. The method of "monopolization" here is to make their product cooler than their competitors product. The idea that we need to government to step in and force apple to make android cool too is so silly.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#859For 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…
Thanks for summarizing. As someone deeply entrenched in Apple's ecosystem, and who admittedly prefers the walled garden, I really have no problem if any of these five things were struck down. Better competition for cloud streaming apps? Seems good for me as a user. Better messaging interoperability? I don't have anyone in my family or friends group who wasn't already on an iPhone, and I thought this was coming alread…
I suspect the "Super Apps" is the real reason for this lawsuit. The other giant tech companies are probably pushing for this.
This would let Google get rid of dedicated apps like Gmail or Google Maps, and then just force everyone to go through a central Google app itself.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#860For 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…
For a second, let's just assume that Apple is 100% guilty. What will the fine be? If it's anything less than many billions of dollars, there is zero incentive for Apple to do anything at all different in the future. Suing Apple(or any other company over stuff like this) when the fines will be a tiny slap on the wrist at worst will not incentivize proper behaviour, so there is literally zero reason for doing this exce…
Ongoing fines until they achieve compliance, or legally barring them from operating in the US. I think that's usually how rulings go in these kinds of cases.
Page 76 of the lawsuit PDF goes into some specifics under the section "Request for relief".