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DOJ's iPhone Monopoly Case Against Apple Moves Forward
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Okay. That is the rules and it prevents side loading which Apple obviously is against.
The key word is may. And while they may not support it, it works surprisingly well. I worked for a company that sold turnkey AV systems for for medical programs, so that students could go back and watch their performance with patients or in a simulation.Uh... I can absolutely install any software I want on my Mac . Have you ever used a mac ?
Also, try installing Linux on Microsoft hardware ( a Surface for example ) : " installing Linux on a Surface device is not officially supported by Microsoft, and doing so may void your warranty."( from MS website ).
So yes, Microsoft stops you from installing any other OS than Windows on their hardware, by voiding the warranty.
Sometimes, our clients wanted snazzy hardware beyond a Wintel box to stick below a desk.
Apple literally called up Best Buy and had them to block the company credit card for all Apple hardware.
Microsoft gave us a sales rep.
Uh... I can absolutely install any software I want on my Mac . Have you ever used a mac ?
You're in an iPhone monopoly case discussion thread.
The Mac does not apply to any of this.
They all use the same operating system and app portal though. The only 'competitor' to Apple in the mobile space is Android. Yes there is a great choice of handsets within that space but phones are ultimately just a shell for their OS. We less buy an iPhone and more something for iOS to live in.Samsung, oppo, hauwei. There are at least three.
The same applies in the computing space where the 2 main players are MacOS and Windows. You can pick a shell but the OS remains the same.
As above, we buy phones as less of a device and more a shell for our OS of choice. Samsung, Oppo, Sony etc all build shells for Android in the same way Dell, HP, Asus etc make shells for Windows to live in.
Both marketplaces are ultimately a duopoly.
1) The relevant market in this thread is the smartphone market (or possibly high-end smartphone market).
2) Each manufacturer releases and controls their own forks of android.
3) There are multiple marketplaces on android devices.
In no way are we only talking about two competitors in a relevant market.
Technically it’s not the same operating system. And even if it was epic tried it once and was dismissed.
How dare you bring facts to a discussion about how Apple clearly has a monopoly because I can’t be bothered to use an Android device. 🤣
It's still Android, where the OEMs have to tow Google's line to get Play Services installed and ship with the default Google apps on board (so Google can access that data). Despite competing app portals customers still use the Play Store because it's where all their prior purchases are.
In modern tech parlance software is the platform and not hardware.
That doesn't refute anything I said. I certainly support breaking up Google's anti-competitive agreements with their horizontal competitors.
But they don't because they only control the operating system of less than half of the smartphones in the US and much less of a percentage globally.
That's still a monopoly power though. Just because it's limited to iOS distribution doesn't make it less so. Think of it this way; if what you suggest were true, Standard Oil could have claimed they didn't have a monopoly power because people could choose to use horses instead of automobiles!
More than half of it.
„In the "broader smartphone market" in the U.S., Apple has a 65 percent share.“
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-vs-doj/
Again, enjoying monopoly power in the legal sense does not necessarily require an actual 100% or 90% market share.
First off, don’t trust the DoJ’s numbers. They calculated market share by revenue, not units sold. That is sometimes accepted in US courts, but not always. Even using revenue, all the estimates I see have iOS at slightly less than 60%, not 65%.
Secondly in the US, courts generally don’t determine monopolies with less than 70% share. Which, Apple is admittedly a lot closer to in the US than the laughable “Apple has a monopoly with 28%” argument in the EU, but ~60% is not 70%.
TLDR: While there’s a better argument that iOS has monopoly power in the US than the EU, it’s still a very open question whether the courts will look favorably on the DoJ’s arguments.
It that might turn out to be a non issue in the US. Don’t count your chickens just yet. Just like the FaceTime bug lawsuit, this may go the same way. Or not.
Which is fair - because much of the alleged „damage“ happens on related software and accessories markets.
That said, how much is Apple‘s U.S. market share in units anyway? Still more than 50% from what I‘m reading?!
Maybe, yes.
I often get the impression that the U.S. loves dominant big enterprises. And them shaving abuse contract terms and ripping off consumers and smaller companies with a „take it or leave it“ attitude is championed as some expression of „freedom“.
PS: …as long as they‘re American, of course.
PS: I'd love to peek - or throw you guys - into an alternate universe where (Finnish/European) Nokia and (Korean) Samsung are making and selling all the smartphones. Controlling the dominant mobile OS platforms/ecosystems and demanding 30% commission from all of the American internet/tech/media companies - and on all sales "acquired" through their platforms.
...and see you defending those closed ecosystems and free enterprise.
...and see you defending those closed ecosystems and free enterprise.
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The 30% was derived from the revenue split Apple already had with the music industry. It would be different in an alternate universe.
For the fun of it I would posit that Blackberry never went under and that BBM became the western version of WeChat years before its time. Rather than apps becoming the norm, everything would just interface directly with a central IM program. You'd control your smart home by IMing your light bulbs to turn off and 3rd parties could create plugins allowing you to receive the news as a chat thread or order an Uber.
Nobody “controls” the market. If a market provider is known to have customers that seem to pay it would be in the best interests of both parties to make as much money as possible. There is no law prohibiting making “less money”. If I could make a wad of cash for only my imagination and a 30% fee, seems like a win win. No matter who has the cash paying customers.
Everyone arguing with you will deny it, but we know from how it goes when it's "someone other than Apple doing XYZ" that your point is correct, and there would be all kinds of outrage and support for regulators dealing with Nokia/Samsung/other.
We get nearly weekly reminders around here of how "Apple doing X" is fine, but "anyone else doing X" is blasted.
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To be fair, I doubt someone like @surferfb would defend the benefits of (and supposed customer preference for) a "closed" ecosystem as much as he does - were it not for Apple operating it. A company he obviously seems to trust very much.
What if Meta, Google, some Chinese company, or even the U.S. government was operating it?
I don't know how much his stance is influenced by his own personal preference for Apple as a company (rather than the general concept and benefits of a platform being "closed"), but I suspect it is substantial.
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Not true. I’m not happy with google findings. But that judgement was made above my pay scale.