Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 1001 posts

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

#171

Post by hu3 »

CharlesW wrote: post #95
photochemsyn wrote: post #75

One of the most annoying features of the iOS ecosystem is the great lengths they take to prevent easy export of data out of the iOS system to other non-Apple devices. E.g. ever tried exporting Safari bookmarks on iOS to a Linux system running Firefox? A simple JSON file is all it would take, but no, you have to sync with a MacOS computer or some such: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254567613

> One of the most annoying features of the iOS ecosystem is the great lengths they take to prevent easy export of data out of the iOS system to other non-Apple devices. Not only do they not prevent it, but they facilitate it. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208 Exported data includes users' bookmarks and Reading List.

Can't Safari just have an export bookmarks button like Firefox and Chrome? https://i.imgur.com/DIgddVn.png

No need to ask Apple's website for some data dump and no need for iCloud. It's your data after all.

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

#173

Post by Workaccount2 »

iMessage is the most egregious monopolistic tool in Apple's garden.

If the DOJ accomplishes nothing else besides forcing Apple to open up iMessage, it will be a victory.

The lock-in of having functional communication with your friends and family is insane. Take that away and it becomes almost a no-brainier for people to consider competing devices.

And no, nobody with an iPhone is interested in switching to whatever messaging app you beg them to use, just so they can message you.

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

#174

Post by endisneigh »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #162
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…

[flagged]

Yes.

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

#175

Post by anonymouse008 »

There are too many quotes 'from Apple management' in the compliant that need context. Something doesn't add up.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24492020/doj-apple-an...

Either that, or Apple's management has become truly rotten. That would be the saddest realization.

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

#176

Post by nottorp »

hbn wrote: post #61

If Apple's iPhone "monopoly" is illegal then sue Google for continuing to make Android worse. That's why I switched to iPhone and have no desire to switch back. Apple's crime here is they made a good product and continued to iterate on it, while Google has churned for years, reinventing and rebranding every app, service, and product multiple times a year and only making them worse so POs can get promotions.

> That's why I switched to iPhone and have no desire to switch back.

Yes, Apple has exactly one competitor in the phone space and their offerings are lower quality so you get an iPhone.

So... they have a dominant market position... and they abuse it.

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

#178

Post by [deleted] »

lumb63 wrote: post #113

What rubs me the wrong way about the Apple monopoly case(s?) is they sound to me like “we (the people) don’t want to actually solve the problem by through the totally-viable free market approach; we instead feel that we are owed some say in how this company chooses to develop its products; please strongarm them through legal means that don’t really apply, to make that a reality”. People who are interested in Apple’s…

[deleted]

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

#179

Post by endisneigh »

globular-toast wrote: post #165
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…

> trivial to not buy Apple products Irrelevant. Monopoly doesn't mean coercing people into the market. > easy to make alternatives to Apple products and easy to buy feature equivalent devices to Apple products It's not only not easy, it's not possible. Your mistake is thinking of phones as computers. They are not computers, at least not to the vast majority of users. They are devices that connect to other compatible…

Let’s hear some examples? Even things like iMessage have fallback to SMS, not to mention dozens of alternatives that work on android, iOS and more. What’s the problem?

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

#180

Post by madeofpalk »

smoldesu wrote: post #21

How do you think Apple will differentiate their case from United States v. Microsoft Corp. , where Microsoft was implicated for almost identical monopoly misconduct? The complaint literally says verbatim, "But after launching the iPhone, Apple began stifling the development of cross-platform technologies on the iPhone, just as Microsoft tried to stifle cross-platform technologies on Windows."

It's really worth a read about what that case was actually about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

It's reasonably clear why the Microsoft case was different

> The U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally monopolizing the web browser market for Windows, primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java.

Microsoft made deals with other companies to restrict competition. Apple doesn't need to make up a contract to prevent NFC payments as they just don't offer it in the first place. The Microsoft case actually has a lot more similarities to why Google lost the Epic case, by Apple won.

Post reply on HN