Amazing how many commenters don't understand this
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Apple Facing Imminent U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit
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Amazing how many commenters don't understand this
Assuming that you are serious, why do we need that? Battles over format have been fought between a myriad of industries. The idea of proprietary design should matter. Brands matter. Uniqueness matters. Should there be some standards? Yes. But the does not suggest that every device needs to be inter operational.
I’m just tired of the world becoming more and more bland. Drive through any town in the US and you will see the same stores built in nearly identical shopping centers.
Google's case started in the Fall and closing arguments are set for May.
Because interoperability is better for everyone, and will enable competition.
So much is finally possible with technology these days, yet is still getting hamstrung by gatekeepers and monopolists
Even if one LOVES Apple - it's actually better for them to be in a situation where they need to compete on merits.
Over the long term this will be the better result, even for Apple and it's fans and shareholders.
Apple having to compete HARD is what created the Apple everyone loves.
Because letting interoperability run totally freely isn’t healthy in long run business wise and security wise.
Sometimes there has to be limits to interoperability.
This lawsuit shows the antitrust laws currently in the US are insufficient. The EU had similar laws but had to create the DMA specifically for tech companies. The US needs to do the same. And don't forget, the PC doesn't compete with iOS or Android. This is a duopoly in the mobile market. With Apple and Google behaving as badly on their own platform.
"Tech innovation", meanwhile Apple received a standing ovation from fans because Siri can now set TWO alarms at the same time
But kidding aside, this is mostly because of the strong grip the iPhone has on the smartphone market in the US. Apple slowly turned into a 90s Microsoft. Be happy the US government sued MS back then: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/microsoft-antitrust-case/
Quote: ", the Microsoft case was instrumental in creating a market environment favorable for the emergence of the biggest companies today, such as Google and Apple."
Who knows, this will bear fruit and a company named Blackberry will emerge from all of this
That’s google. But sure there is the possibility of settlement. But based in apples past track record, seems they will fight.
Great, with this attitude the internet, email, USB connections, etc. would not have existed.
And security wise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewansp...aw-exploit-imessage-dangerous-critical-crash/
This is really about the mobile operating system of which there are only two major players: iOS (which has the largest share in the U.S.) and Android. Besides, just because there are one or more alternatives doesn't mean antitrust laws wouldn't apply or there couldn’t be a monopoly. Microsoft was declared a monopoly in computer operating systems in 1999 even though there were alternatives like Mac OS, OS/2, Linux, BeOS, etc.
This is ridiculous. Of COURSE their products work better with their OTHER products! OF COURSE they collect %-ages for apps, etc., sold through THEIR platform. etc.
The United States Justice Department is preparing to sue Apple for violating antitrust law as soon as Thursday, reports Bloomberg. The lawsuit will be the culmination of an investigation that initially started in 2019 as an antitrust review of major technology companies. U.S. regulators have already sued Google, Meta, and Amazon.
Over the last several years, Apple officials have met with the DoJ multiple times, and the investigation has covered everything from iMessage to ad practices. Some of what the DoJ has looked into:
Apple competitors like Tile, Beeper, Basecamp, Meta, and Spotify have had discussions with antitrust investigators to voice their complaints about Apple's practices, as have big banks. According to Bloomberg, the DoJ plans to argue that Apple has used illegal practices to maintain a dominant market position, blocking competitors from hardware and software features on the iPhone.
- How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.
- How Apple locks competitors out of iMessage.
- How Apple blocks financial firms from offering tap-to-pay services similar to Apple Pay.
- Whether Apple favors its own apps and services over those provided by third-party developers.
- How Apple has blocked cloud gaming apps from the App Store.
- How Apple restricts the iPhone's location services from devices that compete with AirTag.
- How App Tracking Transparency impacted the collection of advertising data.
- In-app purchase fees collected by Apple.
Back in 2020, a United States House Judiciary Subcommittee investigation concluded that Apple, Meta, Google, and Amazon have the "kinds of monopolies" last seen in "the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons." The subcommittee recommended new antitrust law, but the DoJ opted to target Google before going after Apple because Apple was embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit with Epic Games.
Apple in iOS 17.4 had to make sweeping changes to the way the App Store operates in the European Union to comply with the Digital Markets Act, and it was also recently fined $2 billion in Europe for anti-competitive behavior against rival music services.
Article Link: Apple Facing Imminent U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit
There is no "monopoly" in smartphones - if folks want to buy one of the hundreds of varieties of Android or other platform phones, they are welcome to do so.
There always are (re: bold text, my emphasis)
You're creating a straw man by saying "letting interoperability run totally freely"
So many people fail to grasp the basic concepts around antitrust and the role of governments with regard to markets
It's so frustrating
It's so frustrating
If that's how you view it, there were also many varieties of Windows in the 1990s as computer makers could "customize" the OS for their particular machines. There were also desktop OS alternatives like Mac OS, OS/2, Linux, BeOS, etc. That didn't prevent Microsoft from being declared a monopoly, face antitrust lawsuits, etc.
Besides, market share is not the only thing that can determine a "monopoly" and, of course, a company doesn't have to be a "monopoly" to face antitrust scrutiny.
The reality is Apple has a dominant position in the mobile OS market in the U.S. and is rightfully being investigated for its alleged anticompetitive behavior. Time will tell how it all plays out.
Some Competition Law 101 for folks who can stand to benefit from a quick refresher. From Oxford Reference:
“[Competition law is] the branch of law concerned with the regulation of anticompetitive practices, restrictive trade practices, and abuses of a dominant position or market power. Such laws prohibit cartels and other commercial restrictive agreements.”
This isn’t a call-out on “monopolies”, but much wider.
Business interference, imbalanced playing fields for merchandising, cartel behaviour, reins on chronic unregulated activity, a reluctance of an industry self-regulating in good faith, and much more all fall within the purview of competition law. In the U.S., the area of competition law is known there as antitrust law.
Competition laws have legal roots going clear back to the Roman Empire. This isn’t new stuff.
Apple were long aware of this potential outcome. They proceeded anyhow, and now they may be mired in a long, drawn-out, costly fight, much the way Standard Oil, Eastman Kodak, Bell Telephone, and Microsoft all tasted in their day.
Alphabet and Meta are probably taking a lot of notes right about now.
Fortunately, many other developed countries on this planet see things very differently from you and the managers of a profit-oriented billion-dollar company.
The societies, elected politicians and legislators whether the US itself!!!, Europe and many countries in Asia.
But of course, they are all wrong and the millionaire managers only have good things in mind.
Whether Apple, Google or Meta:
It's fascinating how panicky they get as soon as you look closer and criticize their practices.
You are wrong with:
Their system and their rules.
No one here remembers the hearings in the USA where Bezos, Zuckerberg and cook had to testify? They all cut a bad figure!
We don’t have a Democratic Party in Canada. (We do have a New Democratic Party, which doesn’t map to the U.S. political party system — founded in the creation of the single-payer healthcare system we call small-M medicare, ca. 1960.) We also have a centrist party; a sovereigntist party; a Green party; and also a once-centre-right party which, of late, are adopting a far-right platform imported directly from the U.S. (and also from another failed party to have launched and aborted here over this past decade).
And yet, Canadians are watching this and taking notes. No doubt the EU, Australia, and other economic zones are also paying notice, as what Apple, Alphabet, Meta, and other Silicon Valley giants do impact far, profoundly so, beyond American borders — wall or no wall.
You need to be thinking a lot bigger than you are with that statement.
I sure hope Apple is starting to "get it"
These issues aren't going away, and in fact are just getting started
They need to be planning for some massive course corrections over the next 12-24 months on all fronts.
If they (and others of their echelon) don’t, then those course corrections will be done for them.
Judicial action is a remedial, juridical instrument. Regulations are a legislatively proactive instrument, applied once those remedial issues are redressed in the halls of courts.
You are using it wrong.
If what you are saying is true, why are you using an iPhone?
Sure they can fight, though Apple’s 0-1-1 record against the DOJ shouldn’t exactly inspire confidence.
If I wanted Android I would buy an Android phone. People select Apple because it is an integrated environment.