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U.S. Sues Apple, Accusing It of Maintaining an iPhone Monopoly

The department joined 16 states and the District of Columbia to file a significant challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing in an 88-page lawsuit that the company had violated antitrust laws with practices that were intended to keep customers reliant on their iPhones and less likely to switch to a competing device. The tech giant prevented other companies from offering applications that compete with Apple products like its digital wallet, which could diminish the value of the iPhone, and hurts consumers and smaller companies that compete with it, the government said.

furrowsofar ,

Yes. This is why I would never use an iPhone. Closed walled garden. Cannot even load apps from other repos.

Spoodle ,

Having owned and used both iphones and android phones, l definitely see all of the issues presented in the lawsuit as valid. I just don’t understand how these charges are being brought up under antitrust laws.

It’s not exactly like the microsoft antitrust suit from 2000ish, iOS is a proprietary operating system on a proprietary piece of hardware.
Nintendo isn’t being hit with suits for not allowing me to play playstation games on my switch.

If the government really sees an issue with this they should focus on creating a set of interoperability mandates much like the EU did.

verdare ,

Nintendo isn’t being hit with suits for not allowing me to play playstation games on my switch.

And I unironically think it would be a much better world if they were. Why did we let corporations decide that certain computers are “proprietary” and users shouldn’t be able to own and control the hardware they paid for?

Windows is also a proprietary OS. What’s uniquely “proprietary” about Apple’s hardware that distinguishes it from a Dell or Lenovo PC?

Spoodle ,

Fully agree that we should be allowed to mod any of our technology to put on anything we want. My point was that Apple is being singled out for it when almost every company in the modern era does similar things.

Windows is a proprietary OS, but it is designed to be licensed and run on any compatible hardware irregardless of who the hardware manufacturer is. You can even install it on an Apple computer.
Apple’s OSes are only designed to run on Apple hardware. And then is given away with that hardware. They do not license it out for anyone to run on just any hardware.

Romkslrqusz ,

What’s uniquely “proprietary” about Apple’s hardware that distinguishes it from a Dell or Lenovo PC?

Well, for starters, they design their own A_X_ and M_X_ silicon. When they were using Intel x86_64 silicon, the T_X_ security coprocessors were also custom / proprietary.

Consoles are all using custom AMD APUs that are still x86_64 based, so they have more in common with a Dell/Lenovo PC than anything Apple makes. Apple’s entire hardware lineup is about as proprietary as it gets.

verdare ,

x86_64 is a proprietary, licensed ISA. Both Intel and AMD’s microarchitectures implementing it are proprietary. Apple didn’t design their own ISA; they’re using ARM (which is also proprietary).

Consoles may be using x86_64, but they are not PCs. Very similar to PCs, but then so are Apple’s ARM machines. Both Apple’s computers and PCs use standard components and interfaces like USB, PCIe, and UEFI.

But all of this is beside the point. Even if Apple did build everything from scratch, why should that give them the right to lock down their computers? My point here isn’t about what is technically legal under current legislation, but what should be legal based on our values as a society.

sanzky ,

Jason Snell made a good overview of what the suit focuses on. I think it makes the case easier to understand
https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/03/u-s-versus-apple-a-first-reaction/

Spoodle ,

That was an excellent read! Thanks for that!

jaden ,

I don't really see how it isn't antitrust stuff. Apple has used their market power to restrict competition at every possible opportunity.

flora_explora ,
@flora_explora@beehaw.org avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    entropicdrift ,
    @entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    You're misunderstanding. The government isn't arguing that they're preventing people from switching to Android, but that they're running a monopoly within the iPhone ecosystem.

    frog , (edited )

    Definitely iPhones. With all the other smartphone brands, if you want to switch, all your apps and data can be transferred over. For example I have used four different brands of smartphone, and the process of transferring everything was straightforward. In contrast, Apple makes it hard to transfer to a non-Apple device without losing all your data and apps, essentially creating a barrier to people changing to a different type of phone that simply doesn't exist for people changing from, say, Samsung to HTC. Thus Apple effectively has a monopoly on customers that are trapped in its ecosystem.

    Additionally, while users of Android-based devices can use apps from a variety of sources, and can heavily modify the OS (including using completely open source versions), Apple users are not only locked into Apple's ecosystem, but have no choice but to use the OS Apple have provided, in the form Apple dictates, and use only Apple's shop to buy Apple-approved apps. Once you get an Apple device, you're stuck with using it only in ways Apple approve of, and they'll do everything in their power to prevent you from modifying your Apple device or switching to a non-Apple device.

    Maeve ,

    Yep. I'm in that situation now because my iPhone is about to be obsolete, so replacing the battery makes no sense.

    Jesus_666 ,

    I'm the spirit of fairness I will nitpick you.

    Firstly, porting apps over between Android devices works seamlessly only if those apps come from the Play Store. Android has no provisions for auto-transferring e.g. F-Droid and its apps. So it's no wonder you can't transfer your iOS apps (which might not even have Android versions). But it is true that auto-transfers of Play Store apps between different Android spins is seamless.

    Secondly, whether and how easily you can modify or replace your Android is dependent on the phone's manufacturer. A Pixel is a very different beast from an Xperia in that regard. Still, Google do provide AOSP and are very mod-friendly on their own devices. Apple very much aren't.

    frog ,

    The fact that Android lets you use F-Droid, or just install apk's yourself, again means you're not tied to a specific phone manufacturer. You can switch to a different phone and redownload all your F-Droid apps and transfer the standalone apk's over. So even without autotransfer, it's not difficult to keep everything.

    Jesus_666 ,

    True. It's just the automated transfer that doesn't work.

    I didn't bring up F-Droid's very existence as an argument because iOS also allows a form of sideloading these days. Android still makes it a lot easier but Apple isn't entirely out of the loop anymore. Baby steps, I guess.

    iWantaSandwhich ,

    I liked this paragraph from the filing, felt like a slight dig at their think different marketing:

    Apple keenly understands that while a community of developers and accessory makers is indispensable to the success of the iPhone , they also pose an existential threat to its extraordinary profits by empowering consumers to "think different" and choose perfectly functional , less-expensive alternative smartphones .

    nymwit ,

    DOJ wants to get in on some of that hot euro DMA action

    Spaghetti_Hitchens ,

    God. All I really want is to be able to sideload and app I developed without Apple's approval.

    And not bullying kids because of their chat bubble color would be cool, too

    squeakycat ,

    The iphone/non-iphone situation is utterly insane to me. I am constantly being punished for not having an iphone, be it texting or airdrop. These things should be standardized and interoperable, not owned commodities by companies. Grrr.

    Darkrai ,
    @Darkrai@kbin.social avatar

    Stop talking to the type of people that care about what phone you have.

    squeakycat ,

    It's not that they necessarily care, it's that it's the assumed default. So then I have to respond with "I can't do that, can you upload it here?" it makes me the odd one out making people jump through hoops.

    charles ,

    Some of us don't really have that luxury. For example, I don't choose who I need to communicate with for work purposes.

    frog ,

    So I'm actually going to agree with this, with a caveat, having learned from personal experience - because sometimes we do have to keep talking to these people for work/education/family purposes. When they start arguing about their choice of phone being better, ignore them. But do continue to respond to them about things you need to talk to them about. Or, in short, grey rock the hell out of them.

    Method successfully deployed against a guy at university who picked fights about everything, including what phones people had.

    renard_roux ,

    Ah yes, the John Waters strategy! ❤️

    https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/08fb5db6-1339-455e-9167-2ac390a17734.webp

    emptyfish ,

    I think side loading is an important point. You can even side load apps on a Mac so Apple is going to have a difficult time arguing this one. It’s fine to not allow it by default and adding the extra steps to enable it.

    I’ll admit I am torn on this. Before the iPhone really took off in the US the mobile carriers were in control. Does anyone remember having to pay for GPS and navigation and similar things through Verizon or whoever as add-ons? I do not miss those days, Apple (and Google) have done a lot to improve mobile experience since then.

    admin ,
    @admin@beehaw.org avatar

    Here's an article from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/tech/apple-sued-antitrust-doj/index.html

    autotldr Bot ,

    🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    The federal government’s aggressive crackdown on Big Tech expanded on Thursday to include an antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Department against Apple, one of the world’s best-known and most valuable companies.

    The department joined 16 states and the District of Columbia to file a significant challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing in an 88-page lawsuit that the company had violated antitrust laws with practices that were intended to keep customers reliant on their iPhones and less likely to switch to a competing device.

    By tightly controlling the user experience on iPhones and other devices, Apple has created what critics call an uneven playing field, where it grants its own products and services access to core features that it denies rivals.

    The lawsuit asks the court to stop Apple from engaging in current practices, including blocking cloud-streaming apps, undermining messaging across smartphone operating systems and preventing the creation of digital wallet alternatives.

    In Europe, regulators recently punished Apple for preventing music streaming competitors from communicating with users about promotions and options to upgrade their subscriptions, levying a 1.8 billion-euro fine.

    The government’s complaint uses similar arguments to the claims it made against Microsoft decades ago, in a seminal lawsuit that argued the company was tying its web browser to the Windows operating system, said Colin Kass, an antitrust lawyer at Proskauer Rose.

    Saved 86% of original text.

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