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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

#361

Post by jwagenet »

gnicholas wrote: post #13

> The Justice Department, which began its investigation into Apple in 2019, chose to build a broader and more ambitious case than any other regulator has brought against the company. As I was reading the specific charges detailed in the article, I was thinking this case seems like a stretch and will be difficult to prove. Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to brows…

It seems to me the US would be better off copy-pasting EU regulation than trying to smush apples behavior into old school antitrust violations.

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

#362

Post by frabcus »

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…

Just a note that it is more like prices are 42% higher - because the 30% is a cut off gross, and 100 / 70 = 1.4287

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

#363

Post by graeme »

toast0 wrote: post #121
Nifty3929 wrote: post #44

Apple has about 60% of the smartphone market in the US, and about 25% globally. That's a pretty big stretch to call it a monopoly. There are many non-apple phone options that many consumers easily avail themselves of. And at least one other OS choice as well. All of these are fully supported by the entire ecosystem of telcos. Seems like bullying to score political points to me.

The FTC is perhaps a biased source, but they say [1]: > Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at t…

>that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.

Apple doesn't have this power though. If they raised prices they'd lose sales. And they haven't been able to exclude competitors, there is a robust ecosytem of Android manufacturers.

There's a reason the FTC has been losing almost all of their cases recently. They internalized the idea that a large successful company is inherently bad and focus on that rather than any objective legal standard.

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

#364

Post by t888 »

jwagenet wrote: post #361
gnicholas wrote: post #13

> The Justice Department, which began its investigation into Apple in 2019, chose to build a broader and more ambitious case than any other regulator has brought against the company. As I was reading the specific charges detailed in the article, I was thinking this case seems like a stretch and will be difficult to prove. Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to brows…

It seems to me the US would be better off copy-pasting EU regulation than trying to smush apples behavior into old school antitrust violations.

The EU legislation wouldn’t fly for a second in the US system of law.

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

#365

Post by jpadkins »

moralestapia wrote: post #139
boringg wrote: post #22

It 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.

>It looked surprisingly pretty weak to my non lawyer eyes. * tin foil hat on * That may be by design. If the outcome of this is "no monopoly", then it's a win for Apple.

the new form of corp + government collusion does these weak investigations and charges, tying up the space for years and ultimately losing. It allows politicians to claim they are doing something, while securing access for intel agencies and insuring pro status quo election messaging.

These charges also undercut the next administration's leverage to negotiate with Apple, now that the threat of anti-trust charges are taken off the table.

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

#366

Post by ChildOfChaos »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #246
gnicholas wrote: post #13

> The Justice Department, which began its investigation into Apple in 2019, chose to build a broader and more ambitious case than any other regulator has brought against the company. As I was reading the specific charges detailed in the article, I was thinking this case seems like a stretch and will be difficult to prove. Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to brows…

> Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to browser choice That's true, but odds are they have a lot of e-mails and a lot of employees who can testify to the browser choice decision being driven by lock-in. The iMessage emails were pretty unambiguous with regards to how it is used in an anti-consumer way. ( https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an..…

"the reality that in 2024 their software kind of sucks, and that their customers only use it because they don't have alternative"

That's an extremely hot take. When devices are mostly just slabs of glass and the interface and what is done, is entirely the software, customers are choosing the device based on the Apple software, not in spite of it.

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

#367

Post by jcurbo »

teeray wrote: post #352
brink wrote: post #217

Apple 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 just want the auto-sync experience of iCloud photos to my own NAS. Paying Apple $2.99/mo forever just so I can have an offsite backup of my photos is so obnoxious.

https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do... works great for me to do this.

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

#368

Post by bdcravens »

lenerdenator wrote: post #130

I think there's a large contingent of people who want more access and choice with apps and services on their iOS devices. And frankly, that's what Android is for. Just go get a Samsung Galaxy. EDIT: You can downvote it all you want, but part of the appeal of iOS devices is that you have your workable service for the device and there's no real thought to be put into choosing that service. Not everyone wants different…

A "simple" device isn't mutually exclusive with a configurable device. Just put it inside of the Settings app already available on the phone your mother already has. If she doesn't need it, she'll never see it.

I'd argue that the default experience for some is still too complicated; that's why Apple has Assistive Access, which lets you dumb it down:

https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/set-...

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

#369

Post by Yizahi »

segasaturn wrote: post #293
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…

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.

That would be an interesting development, because apparently the other monopolist in this game is implementing RCS with some proprietary crap, and Apple will deliberately implement the current standard feature set. So they will continue being incompatible but now because of Google. I'll continue investing in the popcorn futures :) .

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

#370

Post by Wowfunhappy »

jwagenet wrote: post #361
gnicholas wrote: post #13

> The Justice Department, which began its investigation into Apple in 2019, chose to build a broader and more ambitious case than any other regulator has brought against the company. As I was reading the specific charges detailed in the article, I was thinking this case seems like a stretch and will be difficult to prove. Apple will argue that security and/or performance reasons drove their decisions related to brows…

It seems to me the US would be better off copy-pasting EU regulation than trying to smush apples behavior into old school antitrust violations.

Well, The Justice Department at least can't do that, because they can't write laws.
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