US sues Apple for illegal monopoly over smartphones
US sues Apple for illegal monopoly over smartphones
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ and states are accusing Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its iPhones.
It would take a big dose of hopium to believe this will amount to anything.
The anti-trust pressure has increased with this administration. Lina Kahn has been effective at the FTC in bringing a number of cases forward.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ is a very well executed newsletter with more detailed information regarding anti-trust if you're interested.
Lina Kahn
She was pretty good on Planet Money : https://www.npr.org/2023/11/03/1197954506/lina-khan-interview-amazon-ftc-antitrust-paradox-monopoly
Yeah and hasn't she lost pretty much every case she's brought forward? She failed big fucking time with the Microsoft/Activision merger even though all the antitrust evidence was right in front of her nose. I'm glad the FTC is trying, because they're actually doing their job, but they're doing an awful job when it comes to actually being in court and proving their case.
People shit on Sony for trying to block the merger, but they absolutely were right for trying to block it and now games like starfield, the new Indiana Jones, and probably more in the future will be deliberately left off the PlayStation platform altogether. But that's all okay right? Because now you get call of duty on gamepass!!!!!!! RIGHT????!!?!???!????
Substack 🙄
I'm willing to take the movement as a good sign. The fact that we haven't even been talking about this shit for decades now was just depressing. It's long past time for this shit, and the ball needs to get rolling.
There’s a lot of corporate competitive behavior that’s ok, when you’re one of many, that isn’t anymore when you dominate the market.
All I want is RCS on iPhone. I know Apple already said they're working on it, but I hope legal pressure like this will force them to make the RCS/iMessage integration actually work well (instead of half-assing it which I assume is what they want to do, cuz they want their users to feel frustrated when texting their Android friends)
Can't we just move past carrier managed messaging? I'd rather my telecom to just be dumb pipes and move everyone to Signal and similar.
All I want is RCS on iPhone
Me too, but isn’t this a chicken and egg situation?
Damn, I am stealing this. Too many good uses:
"She lives in a hopium den"
"Hopium addict"
"Hopium of the masses"
Oh it's a pretty common Internet thing these days. Hopium and copium.
We can hope. Happy to take a chunk out of Apple as they're often given a free pass as their marketing and branding is so good that customers lap it up.
Sees EU fining Apple
Oh shit we can tell corporations what to do!
This. Smells like me too (the expression, not the movement) as opposed to a well thought out plan as to how they’ll tackle the monopoly.
Biden appointed a bunch of pretty vehemently anti-monopoly people to power, this is just how long it actually takes them to conduct an investigation thorough enough to bring suit.
Awhile back a non tech person at work got hoodwinked into a sales pitch by a no name “AI” vendor. They, of course, invited a distribution list of all the IT and IT adjacent people to this pitch, thinking their ingenuity was going to transform our workplace and they were going to get accolades.
During the pitch, the sales guy (or CEO?) talked about Google getting surprised by Open AI, and that they rushed to build Bard, so they “could have their own ‘Me Too’ moment.” (With an inflection to indicate the Me Too comment was a reference.)
While I was watching people unmute, stay silent, then mute again, multiple group chats lit up at once.
(And the guy either didn’t understand LLM’s, or was hoping we really didn’t. It was peak marketing speak. He got crushed in the Q&A, ultimately revealing that the extent of his offering was to resell access to an established LLM vendor.)
Be prepared for a lot of hand-wringing about "security".
Apple, Microsoft, and Google all learned in the last couple years "security" shuts down any arguments, and they use it at every turn to justify whatever they want, regardless of the actual dangers or alternative mitigation methods they could take.
If our modern software security means anti-competitive behavior and user lock-in tactics are OK, then that's a problem with our security practices, and we need to reevaluate some things.
Market security maybe What's next im not allowed to read the EULA because i may come up with nefarious ways to still use the service?
If you can read the EULA, then you can learn how to skirt around it, and therefore, letting you read the EULA is against the spirit of the EULA, and should be banned.
They learned this line from the government. You can't criticise goverments after they utter the magical national security buzzwords.
With Apple tipping over the ~50% market share in the US and with the current rulings in the EU, maybe the US DOJ smell blood in the water. Hopefully something unusually good for the consumer will come of this, but I won't be shocked if it doesn't.
I only recently found out about iPhones having 50% market share in the US and that's insane to me. I think anyone who's used both Android and iPhones a lot knows that iPhones are both a worse product and worse value for money, so in a fair market they would be the minority
They're certainly a much worse value for the money and intentionally constrained in ways that maximize the profits of Apple services by making it inconvenient or impossible to use alternatives, but the UI is substantially better than Android. Aside from that and Apple device interoperability benefits, nearly any Android phone is a better choice for most people.
lol this is going to go nowhere
I don’t think so. EU did push through with reform, the US will join sooner or later.
The EU passed a massive, sweeping law. This is a federal lawsuit in front of an infamously conservative and pro-business Supreme Court.
Little will come of this.
The EU passed new laws to address new needs. The US is trying to see if they can provide consumer protection with existing consumer protection laws from the past.
Passing consumer protection laws is pretty hard when people don’t vote enough democrats into the senate and house. The GOP hates consumer protection regulation.
At least it happened.
Bet you're not quite right on that.
What? Unbelievable. I'm shocked. Shocked, I say. This really comes as a surprise. I would've never expected this. No one would have seen this coming. This is really outrageous. They are innocent. I can't comprehend this. No way! It's not acceptable! /i
– Apple Fan, probably (without the irony flag then)
I mean I’m an Apple user, although not exclusively, and I am very surprised, not because Apple doesn’t deserve it, they absolutely need to be reigned in like all big tech companies. I’m surprised as hell that the US government in 2024 is attempting to crack down an extremely profitable business. You love to see it
Kick their asses DOJ!
Apple did some sort of "tech innovations" through years, but its economical success has always been based on its locked down ecosystem.
Apple's marketing about its customers being part of an elite, hence zero compatibility with the 'mass', is disgusting imho.
Glad to hear it could be over, especially if it comes from US lawmakers.
EU has been trying to regulate them for years.
Were perhaps finally getting somewhere with this. I'm still afraid it's too slow though.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66708571
#New iPhone, new charger: Apple bends to EU rules
I think they were fine before, because they were offering the best experience for the people who want someone else to configure things for them and make decisions on privacy, security, etc., for them. Problem now is that they no longer offer much in the way of brand new user experiences that no one else offers, and additionally they don't prioritize the user's privacy and convenience and prioritize how much money they can make with the centralized user information they control and don't allow the user to make decisions on their own privacy and security.
Now we just need the US to force carriers to automatically unlock phones after they are paid off.
They do actually. What you're talking about is unlocking the bootloader.
I wanted to borrow a friend's [old] phone to try out graphene but he got it from Verizon and they keep the bootloaders locked so it was worthless.
As soon as smartphones started becoming commonplace in like 2009 or so, I dropped Verizon because I wasn't going to pay $500 for a smartphone that couldn't have custom roms. Verizon can go fuck themselves.
A lot of carriers make you wait a certain period of time before unlocking. I'm hoping that I can get my phone unlocked so I can install graphene OS. I got a good deal on it so that's why I bought it locked, I'm going to degoogle it as much as possible until I can get the bootloader unlocked.
We all know that these accusations are true.
So much so that I need to ask: is it really illegal to do all these things?
Smarter Americans in that past recognized that freedom, including the free market, doesn't just happen of its own accord, that it has to be defended, legislated. That is how antitrust laws came to be in arguably the most capitalist nation on earth.
Apathetic Americans now have lost sight of the importance of protecting their freedoms.
"Illegal" is not just some hypothetical moral absolute. It is the politics of defending one's values. Americans clearly no longer value either their freedoms or the free market.
The EU said so, and the US did successfully sue valve for monopoly practices.
Except it wasnt successful since its still in the court, and Valve has counter sued for the lawsuit "abuse(ing) the legal process and interfer(ing) with Valve’s relationships with its customers"
EU decisions carry no legal weight in US, and I’m sure the laws are very different. Maybe it signals opportunity and regulator opinion but they’re completely independent decisions
No, these are not illegal activities until you add “as a monopoly”. Antitrust laws are fine with all sorts of behavior as part of competition but not when you dominate a market and it keeps new competitors out
Everything here will hinge on whether Apple is a monopoly in the markets of concern. I’m sure there are legal definitions and precedents for that.
I’ve wondered that in the past when people say Apple has a monopoly - there seems to be choice in the market. One can function fine with an Android phone. But people have said “they have a monopoly on iPhones” which doesn’t make much sense to me. Of course they do, but that’s not the same as a monopoly on mobile phones. Also having a monopoly isn’t illegal, only abusing it is. It’s not legal to have a successful proprietary product?
If you enjoy a good laugh, then head over to hackernews to see the meltdown apple bros are having: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778999
The apple watch thing is kinda interesting.
So you make a watch and it has super tight integrations with OS level software on the phone.
I can't imagine they can force apple to write an Android app, which doesn't even have the same system level access as their OS app and provide some sort of degraded service.
Maybe they could force them to let it function in some limited way but where do you draw the line on forcing them to write android apps?
They don't have to force them to make an app. Instead they could make them provide an interface that an app can use. Instead of their current strategy of thwarting any attempt to make their ecosystem interoperable with competitor's devices. I imagine them instantly killing Beeper's connection to iMessage was a part of this move.
I can't imagine they can force apple to write an Android app, which doesn't even have the same system level access as their OS app and provide some sort of degraded service.
No, they can’t really force it. But it’s evidence in support of the accusation.
But I wanted to point out, Android is much, much more permissive in what peripherals and apps can do. And they’d likely be able to bake Android support in by utilizing the already available Wear OS API.
But I wanted to point out, Android is much, much more permissive in what peripherals and apps can do.
That's kinda true, but not what I was getting at. Android has restrictive background processing limits and the APIs around it keep getting more restrictive and the OEMs like Samsung keep ignoring the rules of how things should work and break your apps when you do it right anyway.. Ultimately it's incredibly difficult to write an app and guarantee background work.
Apple, is even worse on its restrictions of background work, but Apple owns the OS and and can bypass it all for their watch.
Apple will never get to bypass the fuckery you have to deal with on Android, only the Android OEMs get that.
They don't have to make extra apps, just remove restrictions that make some functionality exclusive to iPhones or Apple Watches. So iPhones get the same access to Apple Watches as other phones, and Apple Watches get the same access to iPhones as other watches.
I think the point though is you might be able to connect a Garmin to your iPhone but only Apple Watches get special access to certain APIs because "security".
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit.
It alleges that Apple “selectively” imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical ways of accessing the phone, according to a release.
“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote in a press release.
“For years, Apple responded to competitive threats by imposing a series of ‘Whac-A-Mole’ contractual rules and restrictions that have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers, impose higher fees on developers and creators, and to throttle competitive alternatives from rival technologies,” DOJ antitrust division chief Jonathan Kanter said in a statement.
Apple is the second tech giant the DOJ has taken on in recent years after filing two separate antitrust suits against Google over the past two administrations.
It’s instituted new rules through the Digital Markets Act to place a check on the power of gatekeepers of large platforms, several of which are operated by Apple.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
antitrust law does not regard as illegal the mere possession of monopoly power where it is the product of superior skill, foresight, or industry
United States v. Grinnell Corp. (1966).
A market share of ninety percent "is enough to constitute a monopoly; it is doubtful whether sixty or sixty-four percent would be enough; and certainly thirty-three per cent is not.
United States v. Aluminum Co. of America (1945)
In my opinion, the first quote doesn’t apply at all. Unless you can express how Apple is objectively superior?
And Apple smartphone market share is at the higher end of your second quote. When all competitors are much lower, it may very well be that it is considered a monopoly. Though that’s literally what this case will determine.
Objectively superior? Superior user experience is entirely subjective, but that is the main selling point of almost everything Apple has done in the last 17 years
Apple has been more successful in the US, so by definition one could conclude they’ve done something better than competitors, whether it’s the products, timing, or something else about their business activities. People aren’t forced to buy iPhones any more than they are forced to buy Android.
heard this on radio first
Lol nice
Epic was unsuccessful so I don’t have hopes for this
what issues do people here have with buying a phone not made by Apple?
did you read the article?
Yes. A laundry list of reasons to not buy an Apple phone. I had no trouble finding plenty of great alternatives, what problem are you running into?
Don’t piss off the small phone fans at the DOJ.
The crux of this suit seems to be that the DOJ believes that Apple needs to make its hardware fair to everyone that can develop on it, and make its software fair to all possible hardware that can run it, which is particularly interesting because Apple’s main product seems to be a pleasant and easy user experience that cuts through the physical barriers of the pieces of hardware it sells. And part of that user experience is the sense of security that is supposed to come with knowing that Apple is (more or less) able to decide who is allowed to access important, secure elements of their hardware.
On the software side of things, I don’t fully understand why or how the DOJ could force Apple to develop better integration support for cross-vendor hardware usage? Why do they need to go the extra mile to make an Apple Watch work well with an Android phone? Because the DOJ says so? I mean, sure I guess that would be better for everyone but it’s a weird thing to require.
Is this really the biggest problem in the US right now? Can the justice department maybe spend some time on gun violence, climate denial, misinformation, dark money in politics…. Like 1000 other things that are literally killing people before we worry about this? Or is this just because it’s an election year and they think it will be popular…
When your family does spring cleaning, does the entire family all focus on each specific thing individually, or are you capable of collectively handling multiple things at the same time?
Not necessarily the best example, if you split the work up too much, you can end up with a bunch of unfinished projects, when everyone works together on specific items together you are more likely to get specific things done quickly and have them be more fully 'completed.'
Source: Actually have a family, actually do spring cleaning.
were you breathing as you typed this out?
While I prefer remaining in the Walled Garden because Apple makes it a veritable Eden compared to so many customer-hostile apps, I can see this. I still think the Walled Garden is better for customers (assuming you can also choose a different ecosystem) and it’s ok for one of many competitors, the rules have to change once you dominate the market. se la vie.
“using private APIs to undermine crossplatform technologies like messaging, smartwatches, and digital wallets,”
I want to be able to choose a walled garden for my phone, just like I want to choose for game compatibility on my laptop, and ultimate freedom on my servers. Those are the right tools for my needs
You can only use an Apple Watch with an iPhone. While you CAN use one without a phone, you need an iPhone to configure it the first time (or if you need to reset).
Thry are very locked in.
I once got an Apple Watch as a bonus at work. Had to sell it to a buddy because I couldn't use it without an iPhone. So dumb.
I'm always impressed how far corporations managed to convince people to be loyal to them. Not saying it's a person's fault, I used to fall pretty badly for corporate bullshit myself.
The whole "walled garden" concept is inherently anti-consumer. Have you ever asked yourself why there hasn't been any real innovation in the phone/smartwatch fields for years now. Or why phones aren't cheap to fix anymore. Or why battery life gets so bad after two or so years that most people are forced to buy a new one.
Things don't have to be this way. We can have well designed products that work together without all the lock in.
I completely disagree. As long as there are valid choices, an option to choose a walled garden has benefits. It’s only a problem when that’s your only realistic choice. In this case, as long as Android is common enough to be a valid choice and there are multiple Android manufacturers, then you really don’t see any of these problems.
If you don’t think there’s any innovation in phones, either
Or why battery life gets so bad after two or so years that most people are forced to buy a new one.
“Please sir, don't take away my manacles. I don't know how to not be a slave!”
Passing this would destroy Apple’s entire business, where they spend their effort and money deeply integrating their products to work together.
Instead, they’ll have to spend their time and money creating an API to let random Joe make a watch for an ecosystem they did nothing to create, foster, or maintain.
Boo fucking hoo, android has done it for years and is fine. Apple doesn't want to do it because if they don't they can charge as much as they want for things because you can only get it from them. If they put half as much into innovation as they do into walling everything off they might actually have new ideas instead of the exact same phone with minor hardware and software upgrades that makes it the exact same phone but with a heftier price tag each subsequent generation.
To be fair, the unwalled garden of Android hasn't really come back with anything compelling in a decade, either. Just iterative hardware improvements.
Which is fine. The space has matured. There will be other frontiers.
But at least this might result in a decrease of friction between users with different platforms.
You don’t need to buy an iPhone, and if you don’t have one then this doesn’t affect you and you’re baby raging about nothing. If you do have one and are still mad, then perhaps evaluate how little self control you have over your purchases.
You mean, like the business model that Android has been using for years?
Or Windows / Linux have been using for decades?
What a weird thing to paint in a bad light.
Android is an ecosystem made up of OEMs under the lead of Google, and all these OEMs have different business models. Google’s however, is an ad-based monopoly. Totally different business model. You referring to Android as a single entity shows how clueless you are about this topic.
Mobile is a different environment compared to desktop, so you’re comparing Apples to oranges.
I don't hate Apple but I do hate their influence. They release some wireless earbuds and then suddenly all the manufacturers "don't have enough room for a headphone jack", ...get the fuck out of here.
i'm still angry about their initiatives on delicate phone bodies and non-removable batteries.
And "no physical keyboards"
Their propaganda you mean.
Deliberately degrading picture quality when the metadata says it's from a competitor to push the narrative that they have the best cameras is also pretty low. Points for the sheer audacity, though.
Wait is there actually proof of this? That's pretty damning.
Vote with your wallet.
I'm one of the few people that use my headphone jack with Grado headphones and have had Motorola phones so I can listen to music the way I want.
Don't even get me started on the light green bubble shit.
Fuck Apple.
But that's not illegal. Apple can't force competitors to be influenced by them. If Samsung, Google and the like choose to be sheep, that's on them. I don't use Apple products. They're not impacting my life.
It's probably safe to assume that's not the basis for the monopoly claim
If you own a phone, Apple impacts your life. Don't be naive.
But how is that Apple's fault? Weird argument.
OC isn't claiming that the shift in the industry is solely Apple's fault:
The reality is that what OC said is exactly what happened. Apple removed the headphone jack to coerce people into buying AirPods. Everyone else released their own wireless earbuds to compete, and also removes their headphone jacks for the same reason.
What’s a headphone jack?
the 3.5mm rounded hole where you can insert your wired earphones, wired headphones, or stereo speakers
Actually it coincided with IPX rating for smartphones. The last headphone jack smartphones did not have water resistance, but the newer models did. People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.
These days you can get both, but my phone has a 3.5mm jack and NO ipx rating that I could find
My rugged phone is IP68 but it has Usb C connector and SIM/SD tray, so adding a headphone jack while having an IPX rating seems not impossible.
LOL imagine if capitalism actually worked this way...
Edit: People seem to be missing the point. I am aware that phones with 3.5mm jacks exist. I also just understand that capitalism and "free markets" don't actually work the way people seem to think they do. Maybe if the headphone jack was the most important feature to people, it would do better. Or maybe if it was an mp3 player and not a phone. Or maybe, simply, if it was manufactured by a brand people have heard of. Sometimes it's literally that simple.
But that isn't the case, is it?
Then why can they waterproof the usb plug-in but not the headphone jack?
That’s not Apple, that’s the free market. Samsung touted wired headphones and a headphone jack and the market still showed they wanted wireless.
But we had wireless headphones already. The choice to have both was nice. Not being able to charge and use headphones sucks. Also tiny e waste pods with tiny non recyclable batteries are terrible for the environment compared to a wired pair when thrown in a landfill.
No it's definitely Apple.
Or maybe people just need phones and there are only like 3 actual options.