U.S. Antitrust Legislation Would Require Users to Be Able to Delete All Pre-Installed Apple Apps [Updated]

[matrix07]

How exactly that will help users when iPhone won't work out of the box?

Now users, after purchases, have to do all the works themselves it'll be like building your own PC in the 90s. What a drag.

Such a great idea.. NOT! 👎

 

[tigres]

Would it not be ironic if Apple said hey, we are ceasing production on iPhones. Hey govt, please step in and fix all the broken things we created. Wish granted, all the best - both fingers extended.

 

[Khedron]

But Apple is only the dominant player in mobile in the United States. Worldwide, Android is the market leader. Shouldn't that count? How can a company be called a monopolist if they only have a monopoly in one country?

So the laws in the US and their application to US companies should be based on what goes on in other countries?

So what was all that fighting for independence for?

 

[realeric]

Attn: US Antitrust Registration,

Hey, ban Apple to install it's iOS. Make the phone empty. Give Chinese OS a chance. Then buyer Chinese phones with Chinese OS pre-installed.

Seriously. You are trying to kill all American companies.

NO! 👎

 

[ian87w]

Microsoft was almost broken up because they installed IE on Windows PCs 25 years ago. What Apple, Microsoft, and Google have gotten away with the past 15 years or so is incredibly far beyond that.

This legislation makes total sense and I support it.

Monopolies are a bad thing folks.

Not even a fair comparison. Microsoft actually did nefarious stuff to OEMs and competitors in that time that thus warranted the antitrust action.

I don’t see Apple doing any of that since Apple is the only one making iOS hardware.

Look at Google. To get GMS on an Android phone, the OEM has to have their phones certified by Google, and one of the requirements is to have Google apps pre installed. This includes Chrome. And you cannot uninstall them. So ever wonder why a typical Android phone has so many duplicate apps? Worse, Samsung made a deal with Microsoft to have Microsoft apps preinstalled on Samsung devices. And then there’s Facebook as well. In contrast, there’s none of that on iOS, making an iPhone the closest to a “blank”slate phone without various 3rd parties influencing your choice.

Let’s see where this dumb regulation go.

 

[Khedron]

Not even a fair comparison. Microsoft actually did nefarious stuff to OEMs and competitors in that time that thus warranted the antitrust action.

I don’t see Apple doing any of that since Apple is the only one making iOS hardware.

Look at Google. To get GMS on an Android phone, the OEM has to have their phones certified by Google, and one of the requirements is to have Google apps pre installed. This includes Chrome. And you cannot uninstall them. So ever wonder why a typical Android phone has so many duplicate apps? Worse, Samsung made a deal with Microsoft to have Microsoft apps preinstalled on Samsung devices. And then there’s Facebook as well. In contrast, there’s none of that on iOS, making an iPhone the closest to a “blank”slate phone without various 3rd parties influencing your choice.

Let’s see where this dumb regulation go.

There are multiple cases of Apple using its financial power to threaten independent electronics stores with ruinous court cases just for daring to offer repairs. That’s how Apple behaves when it thinks it can get away with it, and it’s no better than Microsoft used to.

 

[hot-gril]

US Congress is a joke. They don’t at all accurately represent their constituents as seen in this proposed bill. Everyday Americans couldn’t care less about wanting Apple to remove stock apps from the iPhone.

It's proposed by one guy, not passed. I can see why MR reports it, but to me it's not noteworthy at this stage.

 

[I7guy]

There are multiple cases of Apple using its financial power to threat independent electronics stores with ruinous court cases just for daring to offer repairs. That’s how Apple behaves when it thinks it can get away from it, and it’s no better than Microsoft used to.

It’s not against the law the threaten to sue someone the last I checked. So no…it’s not the same as Microsoft.

 

[ian87w]

So lawmakers are so concerned about choice of apps on your phone, but when it comes for right to repair, oh no, it’s for your safety and security.

Watching US lawmakers is hilarious as it’s too obvious who lobbied for what. You cannot make up the contradictory actions.

 

[ian87w]

There are multiple cases of Apple using its financial power to threaten independent electronics stores with ruinous court cases just for daring to offer repairs. That’s how Apple behaves when it thinks it can get away with it, and it’s no better than Microsoft used to.

This is irrelevant to the app issues here. And like mentioned in another comment, why the lawmakers are so concerned about which apps in your phone, but doesn’t want to simply pass right to repair? Isn’t that funny?

 

[hot-gril]

Microsoft was almost broken up because they installed IE on Windows PCs 25 years ago. What Apple, Microsoft, and Google have gotten away with the past 15 years or so is incredibly far beyond that.

This legislation makes total sense and I support it.

Monopolies are a bad thing folks.

Maybe they've learned from the mistake of trying to punish MSFT. It did nothing. Actual competition ended their dominance much later.

 

[hot-gril]

So, what you are saying is...don't make good stuff that everyone wants. Because if you do, you can't install it. Makes zero sense. But, if you suck at apps, you can include it. Monopolies are bad when you block other choices. Not because you excel at something. You might be missing the point of what Microsoft did. IE sucked and they did intentional bad things to block competition. This is different.

What MSFT did was no different other than that their software sucked and came back to bite them later.

 

[hot-gril]

I can't help feeling that Cicilline is an extortionist, that this would all die in committee with a nice fat Apple donation to his campaign.

This is what I'm gonna assume. There's no other reason, and these congressmen aren't idiots.

 

[mejsric]

Microsoft was almost broken up because they installed IE on Windows PCs 25 years ago. What Apple, Microsoft, and Google have gotten away with the past 15 years or so is incredibly far beyond that.

This legislation makes total sense and I support it.

Monopolies are a bad thing folks.

Microsoft is still dominant on PCs until now, years ago Nokia is dominant on phones. and no bill passed to remove the preinstalled nokia phone and messaging, msg graphic is not even compatible to other brand... and games also pre installed.

 

[antiprotest]

But both the hardware and the OS are still from Apple. They will need to spilt Apple into two companies. Then make them ship their hardware without any OS. That would be so much fun.

 

[Kabeyun]

Up next, Congress will force automakers to sell cars without steering wheels, since they shouldn't use their dominant position to bundle their own steering wheels to the exclusion of all the other steering wheel makers out there.

 

[newyorksole]

this is insane. the world continues to get worse and worse.

 

[1rottenapple]

Ridiculous. That’s what it is.

I know right. Wtf so I got to download messaging email, seriously. Let’s see who proposed this so we can ge them out of Office

 

[Cosmosent]

I'm in favor of it primarily because I believe it would force Apple to "play nice with others" !

And naturally, that also applies to the four other 900-lb gorilla companies, Amazon, Facebook, Google, & Microsoft !

 

[Shirasaki]

Somehow, apple making people dumb is ok, but government making people dumb is not ok. Double standard as always. Also, this legislation would have clauses that define basic functionality of a device to exempt certain apps.

Either way, duopoly is duopoly. As powerful as Microsoft couldn’t break into this. Linux never got much traction in the smartphone market despite its absolute openness. Government intervention is ok. But the way it works now seems not optimal. We

 

[true god]

That would be awesome. Also should come without Siri or have an option to completely remove it.

 

[jimothyGator]

I'm just going to go back to the following two quotes because it's clear you didn't understand them the first time.





Hopefully you can grasp it this time.

Oh I grasp it. I point out that Apple can't impose whatever rules they like, because customers and developers will reject them. And you reply, "You're wrong! Apple can impose whatever rules they like, but customers and developers will reject them," and somehow, you think you've refuted my point by repeating it.

 

[ke-iron]

I think most people know there’s an App Store app that comes with every iPhone, and you can alternatively go there and download apps for just about anything. These representatives that run this country is out of touch with reality.

 

[ikramerica]

Your recollection of the case is quite limited. The IE piece was only one small part of it, and even that you did not describe correctly.

The some of the major components of the case included:

• PC vendors being forced to pay for a copy of windows for every machine they sold, even if they did not install one (making it so that Linux/FreeBSD systems got no price advantage).
• PC vendors were prevented from installing another browser (even if they left IE on the machine).
• Microsoft detected certain software (Digital Research‘s Gem was one example) and then then generated spurious errors blaming that software.
• Microsoft Windows would not run on DR-DOS even though it was completely compatible (they checked for certain hidden version strings).
• Microsoft provided private APIs for their Office Suite that enabled it to do things that Word Perfect was not able to do.
• many more things.

In addition, they controlled 90% of the desktop operating system market, giving them effective control over the space.

This legislation makes no sense.

Right up until they implement it and you have to deal with the disaster it would be.

Apple certainly is not a monopoly in the mobile phone space, nor for that matter is Google.

Huawei has 8.6% of the global smart phone market using the Android Open Source Platform. They use none of Google’s services and have none of their restrictions.

Samsung has 17% of the global smart phone market. While they run Android, the pre-install their own apps, application store and Samsung Pay service.

Apple has 23.4% of the global smart phone market.

Other smaller players control 30.3% of the global smart phone market. Many of those use AOSP, but let us take a very low estimate of 8%.

That leave Google with about 43% of the market over which they substantial control. Despite those who claim it is a duopoly, it just is not true.

And the MS punishment was to give millions of windows machines to K-12 schools, establishing windows beachheads in the schools where Apple was dominant, and forever increasing Windows stranglehold on the mindshare.

 

[BJMRamage]

Now multiply that by like 10 and each Apple default app would have the same screen. As an iPhone user, I would uninstall that version of the OS and go back to the previous if possible. New users would most likely not use it either. As it's just one more thing, one more thing, one more thing, ONE MORE THING to deal with when you just want to use the phone.

I’d rather have this than have a “blank” iPhone and need to download each app.
And if Apple had to do this then surely the other platforms would as well.

basically Congress doesn’t need to but it’s head into things this deep.