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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

#901

Post by johnnyanmac »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #643
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…

What I want to know is how there’s any legal basis to compel any business to implement and service specific, arbitrary software features. It would be one thing if there were a law that mandated a class of messaging apps interoperate on a certain standard if they use certain regulated communication networks. But “Apple messages must implement interoperability with Android messages” feels very hamfisted as an expressio…

There isn't, but the way anti-trust works it more or less says "You need to do X by Y date". That X usually nudges a path or least resistance towards iplementing and servicing a new feature (or undoing chokeholds on old features), but as we see with the DMA Apple can play with loopholes for months before getting with the program.

To your example (and excuse my lack of sound legalese), they wouldn't say "Apple must implement RCS", they would say "Apple must allow for an cross-compatible solution" or "Apple must document XYZ features keeping competitors from implementing a proper iMessage alternative".

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

#902

Post by 3327 »

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…

[dead]

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

#903

Post by brailsafe »

danaris wrote: post #716
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 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. This is, always has been, and will always remain bullshit. The problem isn't the blue vs green background. It would be the same if the backgrounds were purple and gold, red and gray, or just both blue. The problem is the different capabilities bet…

> Apple doesn't control the featureset of SMS.

If they control how SMS is received and displayed, they absolutely do control the featureset of SMS. On Android it's trivial to use different SMS apps, the receiver gets to decide how, if at all, they'll be separated.

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

#904

Post by jwr »

tamirzb wrote: post #587
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…

> 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 find it amusing that in 2024 people in the US still talk about WhatsApp as a future step. Where I'm from already 10+ years ago every single person you know would have a WhatsApp account. With WhatsApp, LINE, WeChat, Telegram etc. I think this is pretty much a solved…

What I find amusing is that all of those WhatsApp users don't know or don't care that they are uploading their entire list of contacts (with phone numbers) to Meta/Facebook and syncing it every day.

That "end-to-end encrypted" advertising has done its job, and most people don't want to be bothered with thinking too much anyway.

WhatsApp is a gold mine of real-world social graph data for Facebook/Meta. If you think for a moment how much you can infer by merging that data with other information you get from people using other FB apps and sites, it's incredible.

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

#906

Post by minroot »

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…

god damn, just use whatsapp

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

#908

Post by diego_sandoval »

nox101 wrote: post #294
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…

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…

I'd say that is the problem of the people that choose to buy such a stupid car, not of the one selling it, or of the people that choose not to buy it.

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

#909

Post by 8fingerlouie »

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…

I find this whole debate over what is essentially the background color of chat messages to be rather silly.

iPhones implement SMS/MMS, which are both standards set forth by the GSM specification. That's the level of message exchange the underlying protocol offers. RCS is the "next gen" SMS, which is also being implemented. SMS/MMS/RCS does not support E2E encryption.

Apple then offers iMessage as a seperate service, on par with WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger, etc. It is literally just a messaging service running over the internet, using some form of identifier to identify you, which might be your phone number, like signal, or your email.

iMessage also offers proper E2E encryption, which is hit or miss with competitors. The challenge with E2E encryption is peer discovery. iMessage has made encryption easy, to the point that nobody thinks about it, but that's really what the blue bubble indicates, that your message is E2E encrypted.

There is literally no monopoly there other than Apple offering the superior tool. There is open communication with other phones, using SMS/MMS, which is the lowest common denominator when you're talking phones. That is literally the level of capability you can guarantee when talking over GSM.

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

#910

Post by bmitc »

xpe wrote: post #553
ChuckMcM wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. The first one I heard about[1] was IBM versus Memorex which was making IBM 360 "compatible" disk drives. IBM lost and it generated some solid case law that has been relied on in this sort of prosecution. In the IBM case it opened up an entire industry of third party "compatible" peripherals and saved consumers a ton of…

> This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. Not simply that a company is dominant; it is more about how and why they are dominant. Update 2:40 pm ET: After some research, the practices below may capture much (though not necessarily all) of what the Department of Justice views unfavorably: * horizontal agreements between competitors such as price fixing and mark…

And that is stuff Apple absolutely does. I have been at a company for which Apple was a customer. But you'd think that Apple owned the company the way they through around their power and demands.
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