Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit
Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit
About damn time. They should have never been allowed to grow so big in so many markets to become the only player. They're literally mentally crippling a generation of youngs that now don't know how technology works. I remember a young coworker at a technology company a while back remarking, upon finding another coworker's Android phone, "Oh wait, this is Android? Well, we're going to need a hacker to figure out how to use that thing," and he sat it back down, defeated. Wat.
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z
My boss was kinda giving me and another guy some shit for having Android phones (he has an iPhone). Not in a mean way, just kind of razzing us about it.
Other dude looked at him and goes, "Sorry for being poor, I guess," and then started laughing, haha. But yeah, I've had several people over the years be perplexed by anything that wasn't an iPhone.
Europe doesn't surprise me but I am actually surprised to see this happen in the US.
I wonder what took so long, but anyway. I'm glad they're working on it now.
My guess is that it took a while because they’ve been able to argue that they’re not a monopoly in the market. It’s a duopoly in the US because Android controls 40% of the market and Apple has 60%.
It’s a stupid argument and it’s still anticompetitive. That said, the last time the US government cracked down on an operating system manufacturer like this, it was Microsoft, and they had over 90% of the market.
So the stupidest thing happened with my iPhone. My mom and I are going on an 8-hour drive and I loaded a bunch of radio dramas on my phone and wanted to print out the track listing for her to choose from what to listen to on the drive. We have multiple machines with multiple OSes, but my desktop was a Mac, so I plugged the phone in and started the Music app... and there was no way to do it. No way at all. I did some searching and that's just not something that is on the Music app. And there are no other Mac options either.
But... Windows doesn't run Music. It runs iTunes. And the way to do it is to print it from iTunes as a PDF. Something that is not an option on a Mac.
They removed a feature for their phone from their own OS.
Highlight the tracks, command+c, paste into numbers, and then print it.
Was my first idea and it works, took about 5 seconds.
Apple Music on MacOS has this. Create a playlist with the tracks. File -> Print
When I tried with my iPhone, it was greyed out.
I read the whole article and it didn't fucking mention the specifics of the case at all. Which part are they suing over specifically?
At least one thing is supposedly rejecting payments apps and things that competed with built-in Apple apps and services.
The article said that was already disallowed by a prior court ruling. I want to know what's in the new case.
This means that the reporters haven't read through all the hundreds of pages yet.
Don't think that's going to go far:
https://backlinko.com/iphone-vs-android-statistics
As of early 2024, Android has a 70.69% market share worldwide.
In the US, iPhones hold a market share of 60.77%.
More than 1 billion iPhones and over 3 billion Android devices are currently active.
Android smartphones accounted for 56% of all smartphone sales worldwide in Q4 2023.
It's 100% not about how much market share they have, it's about the restrictions on hardware and software:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/business/live-news/doj-apple-antitrust-lawsuit-03-21-24/index.html
The DOJ claims Apple has used anticompetitive tactics, such as blocking innovative new apps and degrading how Android messages appear on iPhones, to maintain a monopoly on the smartphone market.
I don't know what the criteria the FTC uses is, or what exactly Apple is accused of, but economically, I'd say that Apple and Google largely have different markets. There are Android users and iOS users. Because apps are not portable across these, a user's software library largely locks them into and constrains them to use the same platform, as shifting away from the platform would require throwing out their software library.
So if you're an iOS user, for example, there's really one app store out there that you can use. Android isn't really an option.
And I'd say that there's probably fertile ground for a company to have a monopoly position there.
Bullshit. The App Store is anti-competitive. The hardware is not. Wrong thing to attack. It will likely fail as a result.
I'm beginning to agree with a take I saw online. Someone said Lina Khan's tenure has been a failure because despite gesturing at all the right players, her FTC has failed to make progress because they're calling the wrong plays.
You'd be right, if the hardware AND software weren't made by the same company and locked to each other and that same company didn't simultaneously have a massive market share
It seems that the App Store and other walled garden restrictions are what the suit is about. The posted article is vague and confusing: first talking about an “illegal monopoly in smartphones” but then referring to the “walled garden”, etc.
This article notes that
The heart of the lawsuit centers around claims that Apple stopped smaller companies from accessing the hardware and software in its iPhones, which led to fewer options for customers.
referring to hardware monopoly power may be some legalese needed to meet the requirements to file an antitrust suit, or to head off defense arguments by making a distinction between Apple and other instances of walled gardens, like game consoles.
Someone said Lina Khan's tenure has been a failure because despite gesturing at all the right players, her FTC has failed to make progress because they're calling the wrong plays
All by design, it's only a failure to us stupid prolies. They're intentionally giving their corporate donors softballs that they know will never hurt their bottom line so that they can turn around come election season and say "Well, at least we tried!" and hope we don't look any further.
FWIW, I don't think this is failure is Khan's fault. She seems to have spent her professional career developing anti-trust philosophy. The only issue is that the FTC is the state mechanism to protect the wealth funnel and there's very little a individual can do within the Commission to protect consumers.
Don't want to upset that S&P100 number.
In the US, Apple has 60% of the smart phone market.
My mistake. Was looking at the global marketshare of iOS vs Android, where Android has just over 70%. US is 60/40 in favor of iOS.
This is a nonsense suit. We have Android. I mean great hopefully alternate app stores and payment methods.. eh.
I'd rather them go after the only internet provider for like half the country instead: Comcast.
Comcast also sucks but I'd highly recommend you look at the lawsuit. It's got a lot of stuff in there and 1 or 2 that I didn't even know about.
This should be a rule for all products.
cough Windows cough
… and make it easy to find
You can, you just can't install any apps
problem is that they are ready to do anything to keep their locked ecosystem (see how they sabotaging alt stores in EU)
you have to stomp apples anticompetive strategies HARD
Yeah and then keep stomping.
I’m loving how governments are finally starting to stomp on corporations. I only wish they’d stomp *harder. *
Can’t you already do #5?
I have Macs and iOS devices that aren’t logged into an iCloud account.
Was thinking that too, although there are some caveats, you need to at least log into the store to download apps as it stands right now. I think you can log out after installing them, but still. Also using FaceTime or iMessage require accounts, when Apple otherwise could have it set up to just register with the phone number only, have no account, and just be ephemeral to that specific device. (But then at that point, they might as well just follow the IMS video call standard that is cross-platform and do away with FaceTime altogether, and the mobile industry should figure out the SMS replacement to then eliminate iMessage.)
Can I use a web browser not based on Safari finally?
dewebkiting browsers hasnt happened yet, but in EU, they arely have the select a browser on launch instead of installing safari by default iirc
Forced bundling of their preferred apps like a browser was what triggered the Microsoft anti trust, this is well overdue and Apple should have known it was coming
I don't see how this was a monopoly though. Don't like their phone? Buy a competitors.