691–700 of 1001 posts
I wonder how they select a venue for these cases. Looks like it's being heard in New Jersey, even though the California attorney general is on board.
Since Apple is based in California, it seems like the case ought to default to being heard there. Would suck if you were a smaller company and had to pay to fly your legal team to wherever whim the DOJ selected, for however long a case takes to hear.
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…
Insane to me the amount of WhatsApp evangelism I read on this site. Sure, let's trade international protocols for Zuckerware. What could go wrong?
SMS/RCS are flawed but can be improved. Advocating instead for Meta-produced software is irresponsible and reckless IMO.
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…
iMessage is an Apple service, created as a way to provide additional value to people on Apple platforms so that they aren't limited by SMS. The DOJ argument appears to be "oh, you made a better mousetrap, and now you have to let people outside your platform use it." Why? What's the rational argument there?
They then extend that argument to the watch, which is just bananas. It's designed to work with one set of platforms. The tightly coupled nature of Watch/Phone/Mac provides benefits, but Apple is never going to open the technical kimono up to Samsung (e.g.) watches to use the same hooks, and they shouldn't be required to do so.
From page 29 of the lawsuit: “Apple did not respond to the risk that super apps might disrupt its monopoly by innovating. Instead, Apple exerted its control over app distribution to stifle others' innovation. Apple created, strategically broadened, and aggressively enforced its App Store Guidelines to effectively block apps from hosting mini programs. Apple's conduct disincentivized investments in mini program development and caused U.S. companies to abandon or limit support for the technology in the United States.”
If apple has capabilities on iPhones that androids don’t have, then native iOS apps that use them will be more desirable . That would be beneficial competition. If apple makes it hard to write cross platform lowest common denominator apps, that is anticompetitive.
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 believe Apple needs more regulatory action taken against it for abusing it's dominant position. But apart from cloud streaming apps (which they've resolved recently by allowing them), I find these claims to be pretty weak and not significantly market-affecting. I strongly believe Apple is under no obligation to make iMessage cross-platform. It's their service they invented, and they get to run it how they chose. SM…
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…
These are not good options to have secure and private communication.
Signal and Threema should be the choices given.
You can actually iMessage people with just an email address, but in practice I don't think anyone actually does that since you can't also call them by that identifier (but now you can use any number of services to call digitally while skipping POTS phone numbers entirely)
This quote is pretty consistent with my take on what Apple has been up to: > In the end , Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple's financial and business interests .
Do you think? Is it in their financial and business interest to differentiate their product and keep working at it? I wonder if that’s expensive
Hell, with Apple's cash hoard, they could afford to give iPhones away for at least a couple years without much trouble. I'm not saying companies should be obligated to do crazy things like this once they have "enough" money, but I think it illustrates that there's no inherent reason why many companies need to take any particular action that increases revenue, regardless of the consequences.
Apple's long-standing culture of secrecy and exclusivity is the problem, really.
The number of people opposing these changes in this thread because "it will make their walled garden experience worse" without being able to bring up a single valid reason why would that be is astonishing.
My one fear for this is the leverage it gives large tech companies. What's to stop Microsoft, Meta, or Amazon from forcing you to download their own app store to use their apps? We kind of see this on PC already with every company having their own game or app store. When Chrome is on iOS and is pushed on every Google search, what happens to health of the web? Does that create a new web monopoly? It's not totally fair…
And if other large tech companies (as if Apple wasn't one of the biggest monopolies itself) have to be broken down, so be it. I too consider companies like Google way too big.
But as a user, and a small developer, I have more pressing issues with the iOS ecosystem than "what ifs" about Google.