Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper's 'iMessage to Android' solution
techcrunch.com
Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper's 'iMessage to Android' solution::U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage,
What's the point of asking questions when this community just downvotes? Why even have a forum if it's only use is to.upvote things that agree with your pre established opinions?
I'm having a brain fart, what movie is this from again? I remember the scene but can't remember the movie
I, Robot
Your primary contribution to this conversation is to bitch about how no one engages with you? I see users responding to you but then all you are responding back with is editing your comment to say "thanks for answering"? Idk man... maybe it's your approach to dialogue. Being super dismissive and retaliatory tends to bring downvotes.
I had asked the same question and was downvoted to -10 before I deleted it and reposted it. It's an issue I've been seeing in this community growing for a while now, so yeah I'm gonna bitch when this place starts turning into reddit.
Oh I see. Didn't realize you'd already deleted it. Anyway, best of luck; I think you bring up valid complaints but idk why the vitriol. This crowd is much less annoying than what's found in some similar forums. Don't let the downvotes bother you too much.
It's not so much me being upset at fake internet points than it is at me being upset that I've been seeing how this place has changed since I joined, and it's super easy for a place like this to become an echo chamber, especially when people are just asking questions. Genuine discussion is drowned out by people treating the vote system like Facebook likes
I wanted out of reddit long before the fiasco, and whenni got here it was way different than it's starting to become
Very much with you on that stance. However, this "bubble battle" is very much an echo chamber scenario, regardless where it's discussed.
Heck, let me just ask you directly: why does Apple maintain such a divisive stance on the subject?
I haven't gotten much (on several forums) regarding that question, more than "they choose too".
My only guess is that they developed a proprietary system and as a business want to maintain control of their proprietary system as one of the selling points to their hardware ecosystem. It makes them money, and a business in a capitalist market, they want to keep their competitive edge.
Which, honestly, I get. Imagine you created something (and note, not invented) and someone decides you should be forced to share it simply because it sells better than what the other guys have.
My only argument against this is that there already are internet based end to end encryption messaging systems in place, both private and FOSS. It's not like Apple has a monopoly on this type of technology or system.
Yes but imagine in an established system, let's use the US mail as an example, I create a stamp that meets the criteria of postage stamps but also (somehow; after all it is proprietary) requires the opening of the mailed parcel to be contingent upon something like watching an ad, or "signing in" unless you have a subscription at my fancy new parcel stamp company...
I would imagine that most of us would not want to simply "accept this new ecosystem" and would struggle with legitimizing it.
The sunken cost fallacy comes to mind; as those who have "subscribed" to such a business model don't perceive themselves as inconvenienced... And only when comparing themselves to those who aren't subscribed could they even know the shady business model even exists!
In the end, it feels like Apple is intentionally creating systemic division so that it's customer base feels like they are a part of something exclusive (even if said exclusive content/system doesn't appear to serve them in any way other than "feeling exclusive").
Apple could very easily mitigate the echo chamber they have created. But they created it to serve the Apple shareholders, alone.
No?
I think the argument comes in that, this actually doesn't apply to those who don't have said system. Imagine instead it's a stamp that only applies differences if the recipient also subscribes to said stamp service. To everyone else, it's just a regular letter. I can easily go use a different service of the same type to achieve the same benefits.
And yeah, they do use their system to benefit their shareholders, which is what businesses do with their proprietary services.
Im not arguing for this by any means, just trying to play devils advocate as for why Apple would want to maintain control over it and why I think it's odd that the government wants to get involved. I feel like companies like amazon do more impractical shit to maintain control over the market, but bubble colors just aren't anywhere near the top of the list for things I think politicians need to spend time talking about.
I wouldn't be upset if they forced apples hand, though, others have pointed out that it would even the competive market for other manufacturers
First off, just want to thank you for the civil discourse. It's why we are here, right?
But in your rebuttal... keep in mind that the iPhone users are effected in as much as the only solution an iPhone user can currently offer (when their iPhone image is compressed to a nearly illegible degree after being sent to any non-iPhone user) is "maybe you should buy an iPhone like I did" or they have to use an entirely different system to resend the image (this latter solution being more inconvenient to the iPhone user).
As someone said below:
"Apple could release their own iMessage client for Android if this were really about trusting beeper, but it's not. It's about using peer pressure with blue bubbles to sell more iPhones."
I feel its either sunken-cost-fallacy-as-brand-ambassadorship or simply (yet another example of) bad faith arguments to support such underhanded "but... is it illegal?" behavior that borders on needing current anti-trust requirements to be reevaluated.
iMessage is not a stamp in this analogy - it is a whole separate post office and infrastructure, including staff and policies.
You’re mischaracterising the argument.
There, fixed.
It's the internet, grow some thicker skin, or figure out how to interface with your fellow netizens differently.
Imagine if most people had this shitty attitude. Nothing would ever change.
Mmhmm. 40+ years of online communities and nobody has figured it out at scale yet? Maybe because there will always be assholes.
It's less resource intensive to tolerate a certain amount of assholery, rather than rule with an iron fist to the detriment of everyone else (false positives, reporting-system abuse, etc).
That's where my suggestion above comes from, a realist perspective. Go ahead and ask the mods here how difficult it is to effect the "change" you've invoked.
Oh no! You got downvoty wotied!
Now what? We gonna stop posting just because of a little red number? That's stupid.
Cringe
Watch this I'm gonna make my own comment go from 3 downvotes to 4
Guess what? It doesn't matter.
Still cringe, the point went so far over your head it's almost funny if it wasn't so cringe.
Lol
Honestly it's hard to see how messages don't fall under the protection of net neutrality.
I mean they do, but that doesn't mean a message platform can't platform lock itself.
The ISP isn't discriminating.. that's net neutrality.
I think you might be a bit confused.
It just feels like users being restricted to not having any incoming or outgoing communication across operating systems is discriminating. The reason Beeper's previous and current solutions stopped working is because they started blocking it. If Apple had successfully built a protocol that couldn't be accessed by Android devices then that would be one thing, but they failed to do that and now they're discriminating against otherwise valid connections.
It's a competitive advantage. Nothing wrong with that from a business perspective.
Why should Apple build something to work with Android? That would allow people in Apple's hand to swap. No business reason to do it. Why waste server time servicing a competing platform's user's messages?
Then again, there isn't really a reason why iMessage is a big benefit with RCS, Whatsapp, Messenger, SMS, Signal, etc. exist.
According to the given logic, logic if I reverse engineer Facebook Messenger, I should be able to have my app that talks to FB Messenger users. I would have it until, they block me out. They have a terms of service that likely disallows this usage. They have a right to enforce that.
At the end of the day I could care less about iMessage but can defend Apple's right to be a walled garden if they want, even if I disagree, etc.
Because controlling what people send between each other on devices they purchased and own is not something that the regular human beings at apple have any authority to do, least not for profit. Something very few people seem to understand these days is that in a functioning democracy it pays to have good Business Ethics, or else your company is doomed to eventually buckle and fall apart.
You can send regular texts. But your messages will be a different color like the non-apple out group loser you are.
Ah, cool then, I just assumed iMessage was iphone messaging tech. Who gives a fuck about colored bubbles?
A shocking number of people. It's an annoying marketing tactic by apple to make their users feel special, and also make sure they can see who amount their contacts is using android or something else. Just another little nugget of Apple elitism. Android is for the poors.
iMessage is Apple's proprietary messaging protocol. Apple Messages is the default (and unchangeable) default SMS app on an iPhone. It uses iMessage rather than SMS when chatting with another Apple Messages user. If you use the app to message someone that isn't using the same app, it falls back to SMS. It's seamless from the iPhone user's side except for the bubble color.
Who cares about the bubble color? People who want to send and receive higher quality pictures and video than SMS/MMS allows and can't or won't convince iphone users to use something other than their default messaging application. The color signifies the capabilities of the chat. Non SMS based or SMS fallback apps (Whatsapp, signal, etc) aren't nearly as big in the US as in other countries. The US also has a much higher percentage of iPhone users than other places. Yes, clique-y children care about the color for clique-y reasons but the capabilities the bubble color indicates are the origin of it. "Oh this guy's on Android, he can only send shitty pictures", "he's on Android - don't put him in the group chat because it breaks it", implying it's Android's fault rather than Apple's exclusionary setup. Again, because it's seamless to them, they don't think they should lift a finger to use anything other than the default messaging app.
Of course companies have that authority - it’s something that can even protect us which we often support. When we mark messages as spam they eventually tag senders as spammers who can get blocked from delivering messages at the provider, device and vendor level. What about emergency warnings - should we be able to opt out of those too?
I agree that we need capitalism with oversight to encourage ethical behaviour but you’re missing a key point to illustrate a pretty biased perspective.
.. you can still send MMS. It works fine. They're not controlling what you can send. Soon they'll support RCS too to have parity with Android. That's a goodwill gesture in my eyes.
Capitalism doesn't pay for ethics, it pays for profits and press. It's paying for RCS support.
iMessage will have no benefit after that: the color of a bubble shouldn't mean anything.
Yeah another user filled me in that iMessage didn't mean what I thought it did.
But going a bit off topic, if you want to run an unethical business in the USA then what you should do is cut back the staff until it's barely viable, then sell everything and close the locations, and finally file bankruptcy after giving yourself a bonus. Why? Because an Unethical Business of any nature has no future. There is no long term. Countless large banks and nationwide businesses have collapsed before, there is no "too big to fail."
Getting around iPhone's restrictions is referred to a "jailbreaking" because the "walled garden" denies the freedom of the users. It would be better if Apple users are taught to value their software freedoms and break out themselves. Government intervention is a risk that I hope Apple doesn't force them to take by failing to ethically moderate themselves.
That's not remotely what's happening though? I have only ever had android devices, but message people on apple devices all the time. I don't know or care what colour my sms messages show up on their devices, but they do show up. And maybe they have a bunch of iOS-only secret chat orgies they don't tell me about, but who cares? I can still talk to them across discord, line, WhatsApp, Instagram, fb messenger, slack, Skype, signal, telegram, irc and God knows how many other different chat apps my friends and I have used at various times. The fact that iMessage is Apple exclusive doesn't make a difference to anything, they all have a different subset of apps anyway even just the android users so i have to have all those apps installed too, and my iPhone friends have the same.
Net neutrality effectively ending under Trump might clear it up
Ah, you're right, the reimplementation of some of the old rules was voted to pass in October 2023 so it's probably still in the works. Damn.
Wow, think about that for a moment. ISPs could be controlling everything we see and don't see right at this moment. Kind of fucked.
They're still regulated under Title 1, just not as much. Theres much less of an obligation to set a fair price, for example. More so pointing out we can't necessarily rely on net neutrality as something that generally protects anyone from anything anymore. It only prevents business from doing specific things that are seen as bad business, the consumer isn't really in mind
I have such a love/hate relationship with my senator.
Edit: to be clear, this isn’t me doing a “hail corporate” and saying Apple is categorically in the right here - simply that there are a LOT more technical complexities going on here than the (reductive) statement Warren made seems to indicate
Get the fuck out of here with your nuance. You have no business being on the internet.
/s (in case it isn’t obvious)
If it accessed the message system directly then it makes sense. They're was one just before it that ran on Mac mini farms.
Beeper Mini registered your phone number with Apple and connected directly to the iMessage servers. That version was killed after three days of usage. The mac mini farm still works but that's just through an apple ID email address.
I recall reading somewhere that you could register your number by putting your SIM card in some old iPhone and activating iMessage and your number gets linked to your Apple ID, once that's done, you could power off the iPhone and put it back in your Android. Although there was some caveat like needing to repeat this process a few months(?) or something otherwise your number would drop off. Not sure if all of this is still valid though.
Pretty much every other service ran on what I assume are MacOS VMs, because buying a $3k MacBook for every user would not make sense.
BlueBubbles, Sunbird, Beeper, etc.
If this sparks an interoperability discussion (and actions) in the USA, it'll be ironic for Apple who might escape interoperability in the EU.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Warren, an advocate for stricter antitrust enforcement, posted her support for Beeper on X (formerly Twitter) and questioned why Apple would restrict a competitor.
In explaining its decision to cut off Beeper’s access to its servers, Apple said that it took “steps to steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage.” It also suggested that Beeper’s techniques “posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks.”
In addition, Cupertino-based tech giant argued against Beeper’s security, saying it was not able to verify that messages sent through unauthorized means were able to maintain the end-to-end encryption iMessage offers.
Beeper, however, claims it was able to offer the same level of encryption as iMessage uses, but did not put its app through a third-party security audit prior to its launch, which would have strengthened its argument.
As of its most recent update on Sunday, the startup posted that work continues on the outage and it hopes to “have good news to share soon.”
Beeper Mini, then, became an app that focused solely on bringing iMessage to Android for $1.99/month, with the intention of expanding its capabilities over time.
The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Did Beeper clear its usage of the iMessage platform with Apple? Sign a contract? Get an SLA agreement with Apple in writing?
I was under the impression that they found essentially a back door/work around to latch into the iMessage platform… in that case this is no different than Cisco patching some routers or MS fixing a security hole. If anything I’d be more annoyed that Apple didn’t patch it quicker.
I’d love to be able to use iMessage with my android friends, but Beeper’s methods seemed sketchy as hell.
It was an exploit that mimicked the device as apple hardware, but it wasent sketchy. Everything was still e2ee, with beeper having no access to any data.
It was the exact opposite of what the Nothing "middleman" did that was actually sketchy.
...
Ah yes, businesses based on exploits. Very not sketchy.
It wasent a bug in software. As I understand it, they cloned an apple hardware ID.
They basically put on an "Im an apple!" mask and then used iMessage as expected. While an "exploit" it is not inherently a security issue.
Enabling interoperability in purposely walled gardens for the overall greater good of the Internet? Sounds like some good ol' hackers spirit to me. If they make a few bucks while they do it, even better.
Yall realize youre on a tiny, open source network right now that employs the same kind of scrappy "do the right thing because it's right" ethos, yeah? That at some point beeper might be a bridge to things like direct mastadon/iMessage/messenger/whatsapp/matrix compatibility?
Im rooting for them to keep it up.
I think you're conflating two different things when it comes to my comment. While I can agree in spirit, and were someone to release a FOSS version of this that did the same thing, I'd go right along with you on the whole "hacker spirit" thing (like the kid who wrote the original exploit and put it up for free on GitHub), but that's not what is happening here. This:
is not what's happening, this is Beeper just trying to make money basically selling fake ID's so you can get into the club, and the whole "uwu I'm a wittle startup don't hurt me Apple" is just marketing spin for what I have to imagine was the rather insane assumption on the part of Beeper that they thought they found something that was unpatchable, and/or that they could somehow publicly pressure Apple to not sue them out of existence for what is potentially a crime (laws against hacking usually don't give a shit about the method you use to breech a system, just whether that use is authorized which this is clearly not.) Apple has reasonable claim to financial damage as well, since Beeper is using Apple's servers/bandwidth without approval or compensation. Charitably, Beeper might be hoping that this gets the attention of regulators and they'll legislate opening it up, but that ship has sailed in the EU, and the legal argument for doing it in the states is "we don't like green bubbles" so I wouldn't hold my breath, and even then assuming there is a will in the legislature to do this, I have a hard time seeing how Beeper stays funded long enough to see that law pass.
Anyway, I am not saying this because I personally don't want to see iMessage on Android (realistically I'd like the RCS standards body to get their head out of their asses and relegate iMessage and the various Facebook messengers to irrelevance) what I am saying is that Beeper trying to pretend to be a real business is laughable. Like, this is the type of product I would expect to buy in an alternate App Store with bitcoin or something, not something I would expect a real business to release on purpose with all of the fanfare and 100k's of downloads. It's the technical equivalent of putting up a stand in front of Costco advertising that you're going to print and sell fake cards so you can get into Costco, and you're going to do that by plugging your printer setup into Costco's power to do it. oh, and then when Costco cuts off power, you run an extension cord over to a different outlet. Like, you can argue that you think Costco should do away with membership, but we all see what an insane business plan that would be, right?
edit: This is a really good article from the Verge on the whole thing, but I'm afraid it's more nuanced than "Apple BAD!" so ymmv.
Finally, some sanity. Just because it’s apple, doesn’t mean it’s okay to build a business model on piggybacking off their service. I know “apple bad” but I don’t get why people are defending Beeper.
I've only heard this particular stance from iPhone users.
Apple has done a stellar job propagandizing their brand as the "Good guys... just looking out for their customer's best interests, is all".
No evidence for this take whatsoever; it's just naked, gullible brand loyalty.
Kind of an amazing phenomenon, if it weren't so sad.
I’ve got both. iOS for work, android for personal use. I’m in DevSecOps and therefore tend to see everything from this sort of mindset. Apple didn’t make a deal with them, they don’t have an open standard. It’s proprietary, it’s locked down. Why would any company with that sort of a product allow another company to interface with their offerings without paying for it? Even if it’s nice and secure, this will add load to the iMessage servers that people aren’t paying Apple for. It could introduce errors/issues they never tested for because they have a closed ecosystem and only have to test with their own devices, a known quantity. It could even increase potential attack vectors.
If you offered wifi to your friends via a guest network and then someone figured out how to connect their whole neighborhood to it, would you be fine with that?
Good points. But, and using your LAN comparison: if my wifi's guest network used some custom method (let's also consider it a proprietary method for the sake of comparison) to, A) impose an arbitrary limit of uploading files no larger than 100KB (and/or have the files heavily compressed to meet said limit) while B) offering no clear method of communication to the non-guest users why this limitation is occuring (or even exists)... I can imagine both guests and non-guests would quickly become irritated and start bickering among themselves as to whose fault this arbitrarily-imposed "local network file sharing problem" should be blamed on.
I don't think it's the guests fault for being arbitrarily limited. And I wish the non-guests could be told why the limitations are imposed.
Because no one behind a trillion dollar company should (in good faith, at least) concern themselves with restricting non-Apple, shareable files to be seen as "just slightly, technically accessible to Apple devices".
These constraints are clearly imposed on Apple users (by no one but Apple) to alienate "non-privileged, non-Apple customers" (them) from the "privileged Apple customers" (us).
And Apple's goal on "finding common ground" seems to be: do not negotiate with any proposed solutions as the division we are creating is intentional.
Exactly. And this (community reverse engineering / interoperability / bridging etc), isn't something new, it's existed ever since a messaging protocol became popular - remember Trillian, Miranda, etc? Whether proprietary or not, it didn't matter - people were going to find a way to bridge the gap sooner or later. So for Apple to think that this was somehow exclusive to just iPhone users - and that it will stay that way - is a bit shortsighted.
If profit is what they were after, they could've just as easily made an official, secure API and charged for it. I'm sure there's plenty of folks out there willing to pay for iMessage, given how many of them are buying used Mac Minis and iPhones to use as a relay. Apple's shortsightedness is making them miss out on a business opportunity.
What's the choice? Apple isn't going to license it for all the tea in China.
It's entirely different in that it was not a vulnerability or exploit of any kind and actually improved the security of Apple's users.
Why should our government care about this? I've been on android for over a decade now, I have 0 interest in this imessage bullshit and I don't understand why our government representatives care
What benefits are there to expanding this system? Why should they waste resources spending time on this?
Also this community would rather just downvote than actually have a discussion. Engage with me instead of downvoting me this time, stop downvoting things you disagree with, this isn't reddit. I'm contributing to the conversation and you have an opportunity to explain the reasons behind this
Edit: thank you to all the people who took the time to answer my question
To make the phone and messaging market more competitive. It may not affect you but it does affect most android users.
Also maybe she has an android, idk
Messaging interoperability between the two major mobile platforms greatly affects communication for those of us who have friends and family on the other platform. Cross-platform messaging allows us to communicate no matter which platform the friend or family member happened to buy. Blocking this feature is anti-competitive and detrimental to communication.
The entire purpose of government is to help make society better for all of its members. Some government representatives may decide that 'better for society' would be to allow the corporation to maximize profit even if it harms the consumer. This particular politician believes that society would benefit from this interoperability and that the company may be overstepping anti-competitive monopoly boundaries by blocking it.
Whether you agree with the idea or not, and whether it affects you personally or not is immaterial. It affects society at large and the government is supposed to represent members of its society.
It's nice that you either don't use SMS or all of your family/friends are on Android, or you simply don't have family/friends, but for the rest of us, we would like to send pictures to our grandma without her complaining that it's pixelated and tiny because she has an iPhone. It has been frustrating for years, but now that a solution has been realized, it seems anti-competitive that one of the vendors is now trying to block the fix. Regardless, even if this fix remains blocked, we do have hope that iOS will get RCS in the near future.
Signal is great. E2ee multiplatform messaging. Everybody’s happy.
I love third party messaging apps. It's quite a bit more difficult to get every single extended family member on board. 2nd cousin I see at a family reunion every year or two? "Hit me up some time! Just install this app on your phone first and sign up for an account!"
I'll get on board with this one if all phone manufacturers start installing signal as their default messaging app.
It’s not a messaging thing it’s an anti-trust thing. And for all the times I agree with Warren, I think she’s wrong here.
Instead they should force any phone manufacturer to integrate matrix in the SMS app, that would really benefit the user most…
Who the hell uses iMessage? Do some people really only have friends with apple phones?
iPhones have the largest share of the US smartphone market. iMessage is the default messaging app on every iPhone, and cannot be changed. Ergo, iMessage is one of the top 5 largest messaging apps in the US. I believe it's number 3 or 4 behind FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and FaceTime (also an Apple product).
Anyone who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook product with a thousand foot pole.
And then there's me, who doesn't want to touch a Facebook, Apple, or Google product with a thousand foot-pole.
Yo.
This is largely a North American problem. More than 50% of phones are iPhone, and the de facto texting for iPhone users is iMessage. While WhatsApp is the default IM for most of the rest of the world, it's iMessage in North America.
I'm so annoyed by people dismissing a standard protocol for sending messages builtin to phones and the networks they run on as unnecessary. We should have choice, but why in the fuck should we not have the most basic fucking infrastructure already in place that works with every device and without needing a new account/ app and needing to wrangle people we know into using the that app? I truly don't get why people seem against a fucking standard just because they found a workaround for not having one
So much incredible UX design work has been undertaken by the experts in charge of it… then we’re forced to reassess solutions (Signal or Telegram?), remarket them (everybody download this app!), support them (no grandma when you don’t have your glasses Siri can’t send Signal messages).
Great job with your stock Apple and for driving the blind to tears with such excellent accessibility features and epic hardware… but you suck for stigmatizing kids’ digital lives and causing so much duplicative effort and confusion in the messaging space.
iMessage is VERY popular in the Us.
Yes, apprently. I didn't know that. I think less then 10% of the people I know have iPhones. It's all Android.
Different countries have wildly different phone and messaging systems preferences.
And wildly different economic realities. The difference between three months and five days of salary to buy an iPhone 15 (roughly comparing India & USA).
Lots of rich countries have Android dominant mobile markets. Europe is full of them. Example, Germany.
Over 50% in the US. And under 30 it's something insane like 75%
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Yes. Most of my family / peers have iPhones. So iMessage is the standard for them. We use signal for the rest.
In the US, iMessage is really popular.
I'd assume some people use it when it's available and just use regular texts or something like Signal for non apple contacts.
I'd be really surprised if anyone only uses it and just never talks to anyone with an android...
Like RCS, iMessage falls back to SMS / MMS (aka “green bubbles”) if iMessage isn’t available.
People still talk cross-platform, but people dislike the drop in media quality / functionality when they get kicked to the old protocol.
Yawn.
Apple is a private company what business does the gov have here?
The US is not a libertarian society. Private businesses play within the guardrails set by the people and their elected representatives.
Same reason the EU forced apple to change to usb-c. It benefits consumers.
Apple is already adopting RCS. There’s no benefit here other than to spammers looking for a backdoor into iMessage.
You seem confident about "no benefit here". Are you sure about that or is that the flavor of the boot polish that you are tasting?
Also, "backdoor into iMessage", wtf?
Proprietary, closed source, third-party software that hasn’t been audited by a third party, that’s hooking into another proprietary protocol without the owner of said protocol’s approval.
Sounds to me like Apple fixed a security vulnerability they were exploiting to gain access to the platform. Honestly it reminds me of Microsoft and AOL with the AIM and MSN Messenger wars. I believe AIM used a buffer overflow on purpose for authentication, despite it being a serious security vulnerability.
Ever heard of anti-trust?
Companies and Corporations are a creation of the government. The government creates the rules and legal structures that makes their existence possible. Without the government to create corporations there would only be individuals doing business. The individual would be personally responsible for any harm the business may cause.
Corporations take that responsibility away from the owners. But it doesn't disappear. In effect, the behavior of corporations are now the responsibility of the government. Much like the actions of a child are the responsibility of the parent.
So to answer your question, the government as all the business of regulating Apple, and making sure they do the right thing.
Sovereignty over territory Apple chose to conduct business in.