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This can’t be compared to the Microsoft issue.
On windows you HAD THE CHOICE of multiple browsers, but Microsoft forced their own upon you.
On the iPhone you simply have no other app stores.

What would be potentially possible is applying the same to macOS and iOS, saying Apple is forcing their own apps into you instead of giving you an easy choice.
But this all ******** anyway, what you get when you buy windows,Macos or iOS devices is kind of a “starter pack” that is giving you the basis you need. You are then free to change.

Although on iOS it would still be great to switch the default browser.

So yeah, nowadays hardware and software are 1 package and you get kind of a basis starter pack in terms of apps with them. So you choose which hardware/software combination you are happy with. So don’t cry about the App Store being the only choice. You choose the App Store the moment you choose the iPhone
 
Restraint of trade and anti-competitive practices are illegal by federal statutes and are not predicated on having a monopoly market share.

You have no more knowledge of this than that you managed to Google.
 
A "natural monopoly", like Ford being the only company making Ford cars, or Apple being the only company making iPhones, does not count as a monopoly as far as anti-competition laws in the USA (or most everywhere) are concerned.

That is not what "natural monopoly" means. A natural monopoly is a monopoly that exists because the barriers to entry are too high for any other company to enter. For example, (wired) cable television is typically a natural monopoly, because in all but the most high-density areas, the cost of wiring up all the houses in an area is high enough that if you have more than one company doing it, they won't break even before the infrastructure is too old and worn out to be useful.

Ford is the only company making Ford cars because of patents and trademarks, which are government-granted monopolies. That's pretty much the polar opposite of a natural monopoly.

Also, even though Ford is the only company building Ford cars, it is not the only company making repair parts for Ford cars. By law, Ford cannot make their warranty contingent on getting repair parts from Ford, and generally speaking, they do not patent individual parts, so third parties make replacements for pretty much everything. If iPhones were cars, you could buy apps from anyone without going through Apple, just as you can buy consumables like gasoline and oil, repair parts, accessories, tires, etc. without going through Ford.

Another thing that you're all missing is that antitrust laws in the United States are not exclusively a remedy for abuse by a monopoly. Antitrust laws govern a wide range of anticompetitive practices, and can be used against companies even if they are not in a monopoly position. With the exception of a few specific sections that are specific to monopolies, there is no meaningful legal difference between a market with only two major players and a market with only one in terms of the extent to which antitrust laws affect the companies involved.

Moreover, as Apple creates non-cross-platform features that users grow dependent upon (e.g. FaceTime), it creates barriers to changing platforms that at some point will be so severe that they will effectively bifurcate the market for mobile software just as surely as a chain of mountains bifurcates a physical market. So arguments that "iOS apps are not a market" are misleading. What they are really claiming is that iOS apps are not an independent market yet.

Either way, the issues brought up in this case have nothing whatsoever to do with monopolies (the subject of the Sherman antitrust act), and everything to do with restraint of trade issues — specifically, alleged violations of the Wilson Tariff Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, etc. — you know, the rest of 15 U.S.C.

And what all the car analogies miss is this fundamental truth: Tech companies are in a unique position to restrain trade related to their platform by preventing the use of third-party accessories and software with their devices in a way that car companies would be unlikely to succeed at. And Apple does so far more than nearly any other company out there. And consumers are unquestionably harmed.

As an example, Apple's in-app-purchase rules currently prevent companies from selling non-physical products (e.g. subscriptions) in their iOS apps or providing links to their websites where such products are sold, unless they give Apple a cut. The only reason Apple can get away with such restrictive policies across their entire platform, of course, is that developers have no choice in the matter, because there are no third-party app stores on iOS, and the alternative is to cede half of all U.S. cell phone users to their competitors. Thus, Apple is leveraging their terms and conditions to restrict consumer choice and drive up prices for goods and services in an unrelated area — the very thing that various FTC laws were designed to prevent.

Now, certain restraint of trade can be legal, but only if there is due consideration. One could reasonably argue that there is no consideration in exchange for that restraint of trade here:

  • The argument that the App Store is a consideration falls flat, because companies like Netflix (for example) are more than capable of distributing their own binaries without difficulty, and given the option, would do so rather than accept Apple's limitations.
  • Similarly, the argument that providing the right to develop iPhone apps in the first place is a form of consideration also falls flat, because the only reason that third-party developers would need Apple's permission to create iOS apps is because of technical measures that Apple deliberately put in place to prevent running apps that are not signed by Apple. An agreement to not deliberately harm someone should almost certainly not be treated as consideration.
  • Finally, the argument that the app store driving users to buy the subscription constitutes consideration relies on the prima facie ludicrous implication that there exists even a single consumer who has miraculously never heard of Netflix and thus would never have paid for a subscription account, had they not somehow accidentally discovered Netflix by downloading it from the iOS App Store. Such a policy would be much more defensible if there were multiple app stores, if it were realistically possible for users to side-load apps, and if the policy were waived for subscriptions that are only incidentally connected to the app (e.g. Netflix, Spotify, etc.), but as written, the legal gymnastics required to defend such a position are mind-blowing.
Based on that, I could easily see the courts holding Apple's terms and conditions to be in violation of multiple parts of 15 U.S.C.

Put another way, there's a reason Apple is trying so hard to prevent the case from actually going to trial in the first place. If they thought it was a slam dunk, they would likely have let it go to trial on its own merits instead of trying to kill it on entirely absurd procedural grounds.

And make no mistake, their procedural argument was absolute crap. Ignoring that Brick Co. v. Illinois is basically moot under California's antitrust laws (the body of law under which Apple's Terms and Conditions are required to be interpreted) as affirmed by the Supreme Court previously in California v. ARC America Corp, the original rejection also relies on what is IMO a severe misreading of Brick. The direct purchasers in this case are not the people making the in-app purchases, but rather the developers who purchased developer program memberships, claiming that their right to trade is being illegally restrained.

Further, because the agreement at issue is between the Apple Developer Program member and the app developer, rather than merely being some hypothetical illegal action by someone higher up in a supply chain performed in relative isolation from companies that are lower in the chain, any lawsuit brought by the consumer would necessarily require the app developer to be a codefendant, and Brick cannot rationally be applied to situations in which doing so would prevent a company from suing for injunctive relief from unreasonable contract terms that would put it at risk of direct financial harm. In fact, I would argue that the developers are likely the only people with standing to sue over those terms and conditions.

I think it is highly likely that in one way or another, Apple's preliminary motion to dismiss for lack of standing will end up quashed, and assuming the case does actually gets heard in court, I would expect Apple to quickly offer a settlement rather than risk losing badly.

Just my $0.02.
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You have no more knowledge of this than that you managed to Google.

The person you are replying to is absolutely correct. Anticompetitive acts need only meaningfully reduce competition to be found illegal under U.S. antitrust law. There is no requirement that a monopoly exist. The word "trust" does not mean monopoly, but rather a group of businesses in some way working together or combining together. To that end, the combining of multiple business can create a monopoly, and in those cases, combining those businesses can be prevented by anti-trust laws, but those laws make up just a tiny portion of 15 U.S.C.

Companies with actual monopolies do, of course, get extra scrutiny, and various anticompetitive actions are more likely to be found to cause harm in the case of a monopoly, but in most of the antitrust laws, nothing precludes action against a company for anticompetitive behavior even if the company has only a mere 1% of market share, much less nearly half. That's why Apple got spanked in that antitrust lawsuit over iBooks, despite being a niche player in the electronic books market, percentage-wise.
 
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This is no different than the fact you're limited to shopping at the onboard stores when you take a cruise.
You are allowed to shop at any stores when you take a cruise, do you think you come in to port and then are banned from shopping at each stop?
 
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This is not going to go anywhere because it's not a Monopoly.
I'd have to disagree

Apple takes a cut of 30% and developers have no other choice.
Apple does not interoperate with others on things like facetime etc
Apple tries to stop people repairing devices where they want to.

There are many aspects of Apple where there is no choice, and I don't mean the kind of choice where you don't need to buy the device if you don't like it.
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30% isn't that much as retail markups go. And anyone can distribute source code and instructions for how to build an app out of it and install it, although that would require having a Mac. If they can't bypass Apple's commission on a proprietary app, neither can they bypass Apple's curating, which, given the examples of problems Android has had with apps, is probably a good thing, even if Apple's curating isn't entirely free of self-interest beyond protecting the value of the platform.
30% is huge when talking about things like netflix subscriptions where a subscription is offered elsewhere. Goes on to show that Apple is behaving monopolistic here.
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If someone doesn't like being tied down to the App Store then simply don't buy an iPhone. It's common sense.
That is such a narrow focus. What about companies that need to provide apps for both Android and Apple or companies that want to interoperate. Apple is judge, jury and executioner.
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The court was wrong then (Microsoft never had a monopoly in operating systems nor web browsers). Hopefully, they won't be wrong this time.

(Not to mention that if you didn't like Internet Explorer, you could buy a Windows machine and not use Internet Explorer, a choice millions of people made).
Microsoft was a monopoly, I don't think monopoly thinks what you think it means
 
Microsoft was a monopoly, I don't think monopoly thinks what you think it means

On the contrary, I don’t think you know what it means. Look it up. The key term is exclusive. As any Mac user should know, Microsoft did not, and does not, have exclusive control over the operating system market, nor do they, or did they, have exclusive control over the web browser market. Microsoft was never a monopoly.

Mono means one; in every market in which they operate, Microsoft is not the only one.

Likewise, Apple is not the only smart phone provider, and not the only store for smart phone apps. Buyers and developers have other choice. Not a monopoly.

If you disagree, I’d love to hear your definition of monopoly, though it’ll have to be one which disagrees with every dictionary and one where mono means something other than one. In the meantime, allow me to reflect on the irony of you claiming I don't know the meaning of the word monopoly when you apparently haven't taken the few seconds required to look it up.
 
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But you don't have to buy an Apple product. This isn't like Telecom or Energy where you literally have no options and have to pay 1 company while needing the product.

EXACTLY!

It's Apple product line and THEIR store. If someone doesn't like it, don't shop there! Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Pretty simply concept for some to grasp.

BUUUUUUT...we do live in a snowflake world where if that offends someone, then by golly, "let's sue!!!!!" is the sad mentality.

I completely understand why they control their own store so the experience is the same. So they control the way apps are made for security. I get all that and fully support it. After all, it's their product!!!!

If I ran a dessert shop, would I want other companies to make different types of icing or ingredients for MY muffins or gourmet cookies!??!

HELL NO! Go shop somewhere else then. Out of the realm for some to understand...

Cheers,
Brian
 
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Gillette doesn't prevent companies from selling their own blades to customers. Apple does.

You can bet your sweet ass that if a company started selling refills for Gillette
If that cruise lasted years and you weren't allowed to take the things you bought on the ship off of it and onto a competing cruise.
Buy a bottle of liquor on the cruise ship duty free and try to take it on board another ship.
 
You have no more knowledge of this than that you managed to Google.

Didn't Google anything. My industry requires me to receive training on this very subject every year. I'm quite certain I know more about it than you do.
 
I'll be surprised if Apple wins.
You own your iDevice. Not Apple. Apple is inhibiting you from choice in a market they purely control.
Saying "just leave" isn't acceptable.

Going to the cruise analogy -- how do you leave the ship when you find out you don't agree with the prices? or find out there's a lot of "tipping" and "fees" associated you didn't know to look for? (e.g. corking fee for wine you brought on board).

I've been saying for a while now that this is a very gray area for Apple is feels and smells like the Microsoft of the 90's.
Failing to allow you to have a different default browser and, instead, putting that onus on apps is shady. Then only allowing their very controlled AppStore where they coincidentally get a 30% cut on everything and still won't let me buy Kindle books because they want their 30% cut? That's shady primarily because they didn't earn their 30% in that example. They want free money and control and to remove iBook competition, in this example.

That's not only anti-competitive behavior, it's anti-consumer and abusing their appstore monopoly.

Now if Apple were renting me the device this might be a different story.
 
I guess I'm not understanding this lawsuit in the first place. It *is* possible to download an app to an iPhone without using Apple's App Store. It's called "sideloading" and a few developers make use of the technique because Apple doesn't allow sales on apps, doesn't allow trial periods, etc. But the negative is, no updates via Apple's App Store, you've got to get them directly from the developer. OK, so I can live with that, we did it for years before the App Store and it's preferable to jailbreaking the phone for most people.
 
This isn't about iOS or iphone being a monopoly. This is about iOS users being forced to use Apple's iOS app store (a monopoly on stores that sell iOS apps).

Compare that with Android, Amazon set up their own android app store. You can buy from Google or Amazon.

Compare that with Ps4, Best buy is an alternative store to buy ps4 games.

It's an alternative for consumers, but it's not an alternative for developers. Regardless of the deployment method, they still have to pay royalties to Sony. That's why they sell consoles at a loss when they first come out. They expect to make it up in games, royalties and accessories.

iOS users had a choice when they purchased the iPhone. They chose the security of the iPhone over the openness of Android. More people have chosen Android, but shouldn't the walled-garden be a valid choice too?

I guess we'll see what the Court does. Given that digital only is the way everything is going, this decision could kill the subsidized console model if console makers are required to let third parties open up other game stores on their gaming devices.

Expect to pay a lot more for that PlayStation 5 if they declare the App Store a monopoly.
 
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Sure, I can go elsewhere as a consumer. I choose this idea of a rather controlled (closed) source system from Apple using their hardware products or app store. This gives me as a consumer one vendor to point a finger towards when I have hardware and software problems. I can't help but to think this allows Apple less time to fix issues, security or otherwise without having to diagnose other crap from multiple manufacturers/vendors. I only wish they did a better job of reviewing and enforcing their own developer requirements before allowing an application to be approved and released within the app store. This portion needs more attention in my humbled opinion.
 
Sure, I can go elsewhere as a consumer. I choose this idea of a rather controlled (closed) source system from Apple using their hardware products or app store. This gives me as a consumer one vendor to point a finger towards when I have hardware and software problems. I can't help but to think this allows Apple less time to fix issues, security or otherwise without having to diagnose other crap from multiple manufacturers/vendors. I only wish they did a better job of reviewing and enforcing their own developer requirements before allowing an application to be approved and released within the app store. This portion needs more attention in my humbled opinion.

Except historically Apple keeps mum about issues that will cost them money to fix (e.g. when you held the phone differently and it inhibited the new antenna design) up until a class action got filed then it "might" happen.

I'll be curious how this will pan out though. It could be a serious paradigm change for Apple.
 
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Except historically Apple keeps mum about issues that will cost them money to fix (e.g. when you held the phone differently and it inhibited the new antenna design) up until a class action got filed then it "might" happen.

I'll be curious how this will pan out though. It could be a serious paradigm change for Apple.
It took 7 years for the lawsuit to get to this point. It will be another 7 years to wind its way through the legal system. You, i and macrumors will have a long beard and use a cane by the time the outcome of this suit is known.
 
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I'd have to disagree

Apple takes a cut of 30% and developers have no other choice.
Apple does not interoperate with others on things like facetime etc
Apple tries to stop people repairing devices where they want to.

There are many aspects of Apple where there is no choice, and I don't mean the kind of choice where you don't need to buy the device if you don't like it.
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30% is huge when talking about things like netflix subscriptions where a subscription is offered elsewhere. Goes on to show that Apple is behaving monopolistic here.
[doublepost=1529398654][/doublepost]
That is such a narrow focus. What about companies that need to provide apps for both Android and Apple or companies that want to interoperate. Apple is judge, jury and executioner.
[doublepost=1529399090][/doublepost]
Microsoft was a monopoly, I don't think monopoly thinks what you think it means
What choices do you have after seeing a Disney movie if you want the merchandise and you want to visit the park attraction?
 
Ahh right, fighting the "monopoly" that no one asked about, meanwhile ISP and telco's are merging and getting their way. So you get to pick between expensive bad service or expensive bad service.
 
Apple has argued that it doesn't set prices for paid apps
But they control what prices you can change
make dev's pay fees to be in the store even for free apps
controls what goes into the store with content censorship.

All app needs to do is enable side loading or add Cydia.
Do you even do ANY research before posting?!?

Apple doesn't charge ANYTHING for App Store listing/distribution for Free Apps. If you are going to whine about a $99 Dev. License, then tough.

It's Apple's App Store. Their Store; Their Rules. Tough.

You apparently don't know about Cydia Impactor. Read up. No jailbreaking required. No App Store required, either.
 
On the contrary, I don’t think you know what it means. Look it up. The key term is exclusive. As any Mac user should know, Microsoft did not, and does not, have exclusive control over the operating system market, nor do they, or did they, have exclusive control over the web browser market. Microsoft was never a monopoly.

Mono means one; in every market in which they operate, Microsoft is not the only one.

Likewise, Apple is not the only smart phone provider, and not the only store for smart phone apps. Buyers and developers have other choice. Not a monopoly.

If you disagree, I’d love to hear your definition of monopoly, though it’ll have to be one which disagrees with every dictionary and one where mono means something other than one. In the meantime, allow me to reflect on the irony of you claiming I don't know the meaning of the word monopoly when you apparently haven't taken the few seconds required to look it up.
Legal terms often have a different definition than their vulgar English counterparts. To me, the legal definition of monopoly comes from Black's Law Dictionary:
Monopoly
In commercial law. A privilege or peculiar advantage vested in one or more persons or companies, consisting in the exclusive right (or power) to carry on a particular business or trade, manufacture a particular article, or control the sale of the whole supply of a particular commodity. Defined in English law to be “a license or privilege allowed by the king for the sole buying and selling, making, working, or using, of anything whatsoever; whereby the subject in general is restrained from that liberty of manufacturing or trading which he had before.” 4 Bl. Comm. 159; 4 Steph. Comm. 291. And see State v. Duluth Board of Trade, 107 Minn. 506, 121 N. W. 395, 23 L. It. A. (N. S.) 1260. A monopoly consists in the ownership or control of so large a part of the market- supply or output of a given commodity as to stifle competition, restrict the freedom of commerce, and give the monopolist control over prices. See State v. Eastern Coal Co., 20 R. I. 254, 70 Atl. 1, 132 Am. St. Rep. 817; Over v. Byrain Foundry Co., 37 Ind. App. 452, 77 N. E. 302, 117 Am. St. Rep. 327; State v. Haworth, 122 Ind. 462, 23 N. E. 040, 7 L. R. A. 240; Davenport v. Kleinschmidt 6 Mont. 502, 13 Pac. 249; Ex parte Levy, 43 Ark. 42, 51 Am. Rep. 550; Case of Monopolies, 11 Coke, 84; Laredo v. International Bridge, etc., Co., 66 Fed. 240, 14 C. C. A. 1; International Tooth Crown Co. v. Ilanks Dental Ass’n (C. C.) Ill Fed. 91G; Queen Ins. Co. v. State, 80 Tex. 250, 24 S. W. 307, 22 L. R. A. 483; Herriman v. Menzies, 115 Cal. 16, 46 Pac. 730, 35 L. R. A. 318, 56 Am St. Rep. 81.
 
It's an alternative for consumers, but it's not an alternative for developers. Regardless of the deployment method, they still have to pay royalties to Sony. That's why they sell consoles at a loss when they first come out. They expect to make it up in games, royalties and accessories.

iOS users had a choice when they purchased the iPhone. They chose the security of the iPhone over the openness of Android. More people have chosen Android, but shouldn't the walled-garden be a valid choice too?

I guess we'll see what the Court does. Given that digital only is the way everything is going, this decision could kill the subsidized console model if console makers are required to let third parties open up other game stores on their gaming devices.

Expect to pay a lot more for that PlayStation 5 if they declare the App Store a monopoly.

Game stores are open on ps4. Bestbuy has a store that sells ps4 games. Anyone can start a store to sell ps4 games. No one can start a store to sell iOS apps.
 
You can sideload apps onto device from Xcode yourself. You can jailbreak and install Cydia (well, that's an -ish these days). You can save web apps to home screen and run them from there. There are also routes to install apps without App Store if you have an Enterprise license. So, for what it's worth, you can install apps from elsewhere.
You can also use Cydia Impactor and install precompiled .ipa files using a Mac, Windows or Linux machine. No jailbreaking required.
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Xcode: invalid example
Jailbreaking: invalid example
Web apps: invalid example
Enterprise: invalid example

The average user cannot install real apps properly from anything other than the Appstore.

You can in Android
You can in Sailfish
You can in BB10
Android: Invalid Example. Too much malware.
Sailfish: Invalid Example. What's a Sailfish?
BB10: Invalid Example. Dead company. No app selection.

At least I gave valid reasons for declaring your choices as "Invalid". That more than you did.
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So why did google get fined billions for choosing to put its ads on the top of search results?
Because, IIRC, they were altering actual web-pages as they were served, even after the user had LEFT Google's site.

Big difference.
 
That's a ridiculous argument. It's such a narrow field, you may as well sue McDonald's for having a monopoly on the Big Mac and space inside McDonald's restaurants.

You’re missing the point. McDonald’s sell their own products in their own stores. Apple sells other people’s products in the AppStore. If you’re an app developer you have no option but to sell/distribute your iOS app through Apple and give them 30% of your revenue.
 
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