Apple Sued by U.S. Department of Justice, Says Lawsuit is 'Wrong'

[scorpio vega]

Akshually...

From a developer point of view, they are very similar.

In fact, that's why macOS and iOS apps can share a nearly identical codebase.

Similar but they were created to serve different purposes

 

[LogicalApex]

If Steve Jobs was alive today, he would’ve used every single amount of his personal money to defend Apple and his name.

DOJ is doing the wrong thing. Suing Apple will destroy the US tech industry in the long run.

If Apple loses, Apple will likely shut down in retaliation. See how that will destroy US tech industry.

Just like how MS shutdown in the 90s. Oh wait…

 

[victorvictoria]

We are talking about a legal situation here. Words -- even the tense and plurality of a word -- can be significant. Even an adjective or a punctuation can make a difference. Whether that is fun at parties is another issue, but a legal situation is probably not a party. And I was wondering if the word matters here. Somebody here actually took me somewhat seriously and gave an answer.

Well that's a "robust" defense of your opinion! Or should I say, "vigorous?"

 

[bgillander]

A userbase of 1.5bn devices is an infrastructure and not just another handset. If you had to buy a new TV, refrigerator and lighting system just because you wanted to change electricity suppliers you’d be livid at the idea. What if your car could only drive on certain roads and couldn’t use other ones? Can’t buy a new house in a different neighbourhood because your furniture isn’t compatible?

Whilst it’s true we choose to live in Apple’s walled garden it can sometimes feel like a prison. The daft thing is if Apple did make things like iCloud and the Watch compatible with Android they’d likely open up new revenue streams and the increased competition would only yield better products which is better for everyone.

Can you actually change electricity suppliers in your neighbourhood? I didn't know that was a thing!

If you change countries, though, you actually can need to buy a new TV, refrigerator, and lighting system, as the electricity and broadcast standards vary. This is why universal power supplies and converters exist.

That said, the the electricity provider analogy seems more equivalent to cellular providers and iPhone already works with multiple cellular providers per country.

 

[Ctrlos]

And so next, you're going to ask the United Nations to force a government-determined standard on how all products should work?

Did we not get a worldwide standard for the supply of electricity in the 19th century?

 

[webkit]

No, no.... you can't buy an Android phone as that's not possible, as Apple have a monopoly and there's no alternatives available. It's Apple or nothing. Obviously.

Monopoly (noun): The exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.

Er.... wait a minute.... if there are Android phones, then it can't be a monopoly.... I'll get my coat.

Monopoly can have varying definitions in a legal system and doesn't necessarily mean a company having exclusive control of a market. For example, Microsoft was ruled a monopoly in computer operating systems in 1999 despite there being alternatives like Mac OS, OS/2, Linux, BeOS, etc.

 

[Ctrlos]

Can you actually change electricity suppliers in your neighbourhood? I didn't know that was a thing!

If you change countries, though, you actually can need to buy a new TV, refrigerator, and lighting system, as the electricity and broadcast standards vary. This is why universal power supplies and converters exist.

That said, the the electricity provider analogy seems more equivalent to cellular providers and iPhone already works with multiple cellular providers per country.

It also used to work with a multitude of accessories.

 

[Student of Life]

This is an infrastructure arguement akin to saying that if you don’t like living in one country you should just pack up and move somewhere else when we all know that doing that is not an easy option.

I can’t move to Android. All my data is in iCloud. I cannot just download my MP3s from iTunes to an Android phone, All my documents are in Pages. My external drives are all APFS. All my medical and health data is in Health and my Apple Watch. I need instant copy and paste between iOS and iPad.

Everything you are complaining about can be transferred. It will take you time but you can do it.

All your data is in the cloud, transfer it to you computer then upload it whatever online plan you want.

Documents in pages, convert them to pdf or word comparable and store them wherever you want.

Etc etc, this is more about someone being lazy and not wanting to do what they claim is not possible. That’s a you issue here if one is being frank.

No you don’t want to do the work, you want it all magically done for you. That’s the real issue here.

 

[Ctrlos]

Everything you are complaining about can be transferred. It will take you time but you can do it.

All your data is in the cloud, transfer it to you computer then upload it whatever online plan you want.

Documents in pages, convert them to pdf or word comparable and store them wherever you want.

Etc etc, this is more about someone being lazy and not wanting to do what they claim is not possible. That’s a you issue here if one is being frank.

No you don’t want to do the work, you want it all magically done for you. That’s the real issue here.

So again, it’s perfectly acceptable to be forced into changing an entire home technology setup just to change a phone? That’s the real issue here. It would be like having to buy a whole new kitchen because you want a different Blender And then complaining that I don’t want to have to put the effort in installing a whole new setup or paying a fortune for a contractor to do it for me, Just to change a blender.

 

[bgillander]

It also used to work with a multitude of accessories.

It? The iPhone? My iPhone still works with a multitude of accessories, although I guess my next one will stop working with most of my Lightning accessories, due to that whole USB-C change. Too bad the government didn't get involved on that one.

 

[Ctrlos]

Again, you're being hyperbolic.

But even so...you're asking Government to do what? Force every piece of software to function equally well with every other piece of software? To have no features in one device over another? Eliminate the difference between MacOS and Windows? Between Android and iPHone? To simply do away with competition in the marketplace?

Utopia, right! Good luck with your vision of Utopia.

No, just greater levels of interoperability, in the exact same way I can take my steam games library between devices. A Mac, PC, Linux or Steamdeck are all very different machInes but the cross compatibility remains.

 

[chatin]

Steve Job's closed loop is coming back to byte Apple. Parking is handicap parking and excluding losers is so 1984.

 

[Ctrlos]

It? The iPhone? My iPhone still works with a multitude of accessories, although I guess my next one will stop working with most of my Lightning accessories, due to that whole USB-C change. Too bad the government didn't get involved on that one.

They had to there because Apple was dragging its heels in adopting a universal technological standard.

And what happened when they did? Top spending iPhone owners went from USB2.0 transfer rates to being able to film ProRes straight to an external drive. It made things better.

 

[timborama]

Who is this suit suppose to benefit?! I’m sure Meta, Epic and other lobbyists are behind the suit.

 

[avkills]

Did we not get a worldwide standard for the supply of electricity in the 19th century?

No. Europe uses 50Hz ~ 220Vac while the US uses 60hz ~ 110Vac. You need to be careful if you are a world traveller before haphazardly plugging things in with adapters. Most things these days have universal power supplies. But if whatever you plug doesn't you will toast it. They do make step up/down converters also.

 

[scorpio vega]

So you're saying that there's no other reason why you'd buy an iPhone? Would you rather have no cell phone than use an open iPhone?

Ah so it's not the closed store that you buy iPhone. Or at least not just that. Because if it was just that you'd have no problem switching. Thus there is choice even if both Operating Systems are open. I rest my case.

Your case has not been made at all. I use iPhone because it is the best os and a big part of that is because it’s closed.

I greatly preferred Windows phone 8. When Microsoft started making windows 10 mobile like lagdroid I immediately hated it because it became terrible and i fear that history is repeating itself with iOS.

I’ll have to do what many people do now. Don’t update my iPhone. Many ppl still into jailbreak are running older iOS. Hopefully apple will stay the course.

 

[cylack]

So 17 years from now, after Apple has spent billions in R&D growing the virtual glasses market from nothing, and Vision Pro is the market leader, can we expect a DOJ lawsuit accusing Apple of being a mean monopolist and not allowing its competitors to free ride on the platform it built from scratch?

 

[bgillander]

So what you’re saying is that it’s perfectly acceptable to:
- Buy a whole new suite of applications from scratch
- Have to copy copious amounts of data across multiple hard disks just to format them correctly
- Buy a whole new computer
- Buy a whole new smartwatch
- Buy a whole new TV box
- Spend the better part of a month manually typing out new data into who knows what app
Just so I can kid myself I have a choice about buying an Android phone?!

I've got both Android and iPhones (and tablets and iPads, and AppleTV and Chromecast). It isn't really that difficult to co-exist, though I guess trying to totally eliminate one or the other could certainly be uglier. I'm not sure why you would buy a new computer, though?

That typing out new data line does remind me of switching my email address 2 years ago after 20 years at the same ISP. That was truly brutal!

 

[avkills]

No, just greater levels of interoperability, in the exact same way I can take my steam games library between devices. A Mac, PC, Linux or Steamdeck are all very different machInes but the cross compatibility remains.

That is not necessarily true. Most of the AAA games on steam do not work on Mac OS; and if they do work, the performance sucks.

Gaming is a dead end argument. Serious gamers use Windows. Find something else with actual merit.

 

[bgillander]

They had to there because Apple was dragging its heels in adopting a universal technological standard.

And what happened when they did? Top spending iPhone owners went from USB2.0 transfer rates to being able to film ProRes straight to an external drive. It made things better.

So what were you complaining about, then? I'm fine with USB-C, as I already had accessories because all my other Apple and Windows devices were already using it.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

So you'd rather have Merrick Garland of the DOJ making these decisions?

This is the crux. We all would like certain differences in everything we buy. But thinking Govt. can manage this better than the market is at the heart of why this and the EU are all silly.

No, I would rather Merrick Garland not make the decision. But to not admit that Apple does often abuse its customers through obfuscation is to willingly put up blinders. I love their products, but Apple is happy to play dirty.

 

[Ctrlos]

That is not necessarily true. Most of the AAA games on steam do not work on Mac OS; and if they do work, the performance sucks.

Gaming is a dead end argument. Serious gamers use Windows. Find something else with actual merit.

Serious gamers use Windows because….

- they have the choice of what hardware configs to build
- multiple storefronts to buy from
- competing prebuilt hardware from different manufacturers.
- A plethora of peripherals to choose from
- The confidence that moving to another manufacturer or upgrading their hardware will not invalidate their software library
- The option of buying portable PCs and changing the paradigm of where they play

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Some hilarious takes in this lawsuit.

"Apple is disrupting the growth of apps"

Whoops. Apple is singlehandedly responsible for the growth of apps.

"Apple has made third party messaging worse"

No, they've made iMessage better because they can, because it's their platform. Nothing is stopping anyone else from doing what Apple has done.

"Apple has prevented third-party apps from offering tap-to-pay functionality"

Again, Apple doesn't even have to include NFC on the iPhone hardware at all. That's their product choice. You can't tell me that merely having NFC means they have software obligations that go beyond customer safety.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

If Steve Jobs was alive today, he would’ve used every single amount of his personal money to defend Apple and his name.

DOJ is doing the wrong thing. Suing Apple will destroy the US tech industry in the long run.

If Apple loses, Apple will likely shut down in retaliation. See how that will destroy US tech industry.

If Apple decided: "Fine, we'll pull our products" The DOJ would be finding some way to insist that Apple has to continue providing products for the public good.

 

[DeepWebinar]

i’d have to give it to them if their entire defense was “wrong”