US sues Apple for illegal monopoly over smartphones
theverge.com
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ and states are accusing Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its iPhones.
I don't hate Apple but I do hate their influence. They release some wireless earbuds and then suddenly all the manufacturers "don't have enough room for a headphone jack", ...get the fuck out of here.
i'm still angry about their initiatives on delicate phone bodies and non-removable batteries.
And "no physical keyboards"
Ehh, that's ok. Slide out keyboards aside, having an on-display keyboard is a better idea by and large.
A keyboard without tactile feedback is objectively worse than a keyboard with tactile feedback, excluding other factors.
I've never had a physical keyboard lag out then send an entirely different keystroke because it thought I held a button, or send a single keystroke because I was typing too quickly.
I've never had to wait a moment for a physical keyboard to show up after selecting a text box.
I've never had the entire layout of a page shift to make room for a physical keyboard whenever I select or deselect a text box.
I've never had a physical keyboard prevent me from using the number pad and force me to use the full keyboard (or worse, vice versa) because of an improperly configured input box.
The way I see it there are exactly two real benefits to integrating a software keyboard into a touchscreen: reduced physical complexity (the entire device is essentially just one screen), and easier access to emoji. A touchscreen keyboard performs far worse as a keyboard. It's a valid trade-off for a small mobile device, but it's not objectively better.
A keyboard is not just to enter text It can do a multitude of things like emojis. Good luck remembering all the mappings on a physical one, or you end up with having them eat screen space. Might not be your use case, but a vast majority of the world uses it.
Additionally, this increases the overall screen real estate. Aside for sliding keyboards (which I did add a caveat for in my original comment), a physical keyboard would be in the way for most of the usage an average person makes on the phone, like watching videos, looking at pictures.
A physical keyboard would probably weight more as well (this is just a guess, based on the idea the membrane, and additional circuitry required for a keyboard would be more than the weight of a glass panel).
A physical keyboard adds an additional point of failure on your device as well.
I'm not saying virtual keyboards are perfect. Like any other thing, there are trade offs to make. But in the form factor phones work in, a virtual keyboard makes more sense according to me. The best of both worlds would probably be a sliding keyboard, but that does add more weight to the device.
There's room for both in my opinion. Keyboards are good for accuracy. Touchscreens are good for custom inputs and slightly faster to type on. In an ideal world, we'd have both.
To be frank, I find touchscreens so abhorrently useless that I just use my phone less than I'd like to - for example, I'm much more likely to just flat out ignore messages because of how tedious input is on phones. I don't know if a keyboard would make a huge difference for me since I think mobile devices are garbage in more ways than one, but the lack of a keyboard is by far the biggest issue.
A hercon keyboard, like in old military stuff, will last far longer than any touchscreen. Its feedback is weaker than for most keyboards, but still better than any touchscreen.
If we are choosing between a touchscreen alone and a touchscreen plus keyboard, then yeah, only this isn't a fair comparison.
A fair one would be keyboard vs touchscreen.
The breakthrough in ergonomics caused by mass production of stuff for people of different metrics and problems and everything during WWII was entirely about this sentence being wrong.
A good interface is not for "the majority" or for "the average user", it's customizable for all the extremes, so for every user with just a bit of initial effort.
To add, I personally have had all of the complaints of digital keyboards happen to physical ones. Just not the removal of the numpad. The others, wordt of which is lag, Ive had plenty. Input lag IS THE WORST.
It’s all I can do not to contact the web admin when this happens! Two days ago I used a form where the first box was set correctly and the second wasn’t. (Also how about when a site tells your password manager to input the p/w in the email field, uhg.)
Pretty rare, no?
Might’ve seen that twice in the past year.
Interesting, just checked and I suppose I kind of wait a millisecond but it’s essentially imperceptible. (Have a pretty new flagship phone.)
Gotta check reviews on the Clicks now that I think it’s been out a couple months:
For whom?
Yeah, but I like physical keyboards because they're cool, and non-physical keyboards are lame. They reduce my hardware experience to a joyless, abstracted, sterile experience, where I don't have the ability to click any buttons, turn any knobs, flip any hinges. Then, on top of that, the software experience also ends up being standardized and sterile.
It is more practically efficient, sure. But I like the inefficiency. It's like driving a stick-shift, it's less convenient, but the tactility and inconvenience, the physicality, makes the object more real, less confined to cyberspace. I am forced to become a more conscious driver, I can't drink a drink while I drive, or drive one-handed. Old phones are like portable games consoles. New phones are magic mirrors that steal your soul.
There's also probably something to be said that there's a sort of two-way causal relationship, where the phones becoming more practical devices enables more reliance upon them, and phones becoming more practical devices is driven by a need from private interests to make these devices more reliable and frictionless. More joyless. Cars used to be a simple toy and a fool's replacement for the horse and buggy. In many ways, I would've much preferred if they had remained confined to that use case, rather than evolving to take over american civic infrastructure and life.
It's sort of like, dwarf fortress has an appeal, not just in playing the "game", right, not just in doing the things in the game, but also in memorizing the layouts and how to interface with the horrible UI, where it makes you feel smart for understanding how to parse it, even if in reality it's a fairly useless skill, and it's not actually that complicated.
Are you ok?
no, why do you ask?
Not all phones have gone to the dark side - https://www.fxtec.com
Their propaganda you mean.
Deliberately degrading picture quality when the metadata says it's from a competitor to push the narrative that they have the best cameras is also pretty low. Points for the sheer audacity, though.
Wait is there actually proof of this? That's pretty damning.
The proof is the status quo. Video texts from Android users look bad on an iPhone. Apple could choose to fall back to RCS instead of SMS from iMessage. RCS would offer better video quality than SMS, which overall improves the interoperability of all phones. Because RCS is a standard and the natural successor to SMS, refusing to support the standard makes it less likely to succeed, with the intent of defending their dominant market share.
While I agree with you, this isn't as outright as I though it would be though. Apple fan boys could very easily just handwave this away. Frankly I don't live in the US so no one here uses iMessage anyways so I don't really have any examples I have seen or could use to show people.
Vote with your wallet.
I'm one of the few people that use my headphone jack with Grado headphones and have had Motorola phones so I can listen to music the way I want.
Don't even get me started on the light green bubble shit.
Fuck Apple.
But that's not illegal. Apple can't force competitors to be influenced by them. If Samsung, Google and the like choose to be sheep, that's on them. I don't use Apple products. They're not impacting my life.
It's probably safe to assume that's not the basis for the monopoly claim
I should hope not. They have about 61% market share in the US. A large chunk to be sure, but hardly a monopoly. With plenty of Android OS manufacturers, there are plenty to choose from.
Did you read the article? Their concerns are a number of anticompetiive behaviours from Apple,. Not the lack of competition. But that said, "Android" is not a competitor, Android is an OS. Samsung is a competitor and they're nowhere near Apples size in the US
The Android OS is a competitor to iOS. Yes, Android is produced by several different manufacturers.
It's not a competitor in the sense of a being a company that can monopolise, which is the context of the discsussion
According to the article, the main points are:
I'm somewhat conflicted. As much as I despise Apple, they have complete rights on their operating systems and thus can tell what they want or don't want there, kinda like how videogame consoles work. Far from ideal for both consumers and developers, obviously, especially with how Apple hates both.
As a court case, this sounds dumb and likely to go nowhere. If it was a law proposal that would force them and any future wannabes to open up like PCs, however, I'd be fully behind it.
I seldom argue against capitalism, but this is a good example of runaway capitalism. Apple has been causing a lot of problems and grief. If this isn't the solution, what is? People are too stupid en mass to make the change we need here.
As I said in my comment, a better solution would be a law instead of a court case. Even if it sets a precedent, it still leaves all the legal wiggle room needed for Apple, or anyone else, to fuck around in a different manner and get back in the same spot again.
Agreed. I have no love for the company, but this is government overreach. If Apple users/developers have a problem with any of these items, they have the option to choose another platform.
Now, if Apple was literally the only game in town, I would probably feel differently.
If you own a phone, Apple impacts your life. Don't be naive.
That's silly. I own a Samsung phone. Checking email and the weather on it hardly "impacts" my life. Furthermore, you have the option to move to another platform if it bothers you that much. If people don't leave, that indicates their users are willing to tolerate these issues.
Apple impacts your life, if indirectly, by shaping the market that they control over 50% of. I haven't owned an Apple product since my 4th gen click wheel iPod, and I'd be a fool to suggest that their decisions don't have an influence on my life.
Influence and impact are not interchangeable. I would agree they have some influence (indirect) as they affect their competitors and I purchase products from their competitors. They don't impact (direct) me as I do not use any of their services or products. Apple and I do not have a direct relationship.
Lol ok semantics.
"Impact" doesn't mean "direct" necessarily, that's why the word is often used with the word "direct" or "indirect" as a modifier.
But how is that Apple's fault? Weird argument.
OC isn't claiming that the shift in the industry is solely Apple's fault:
The reality is that what OC said is exactly what happened. Apple removed the headphone jack to coerce people into buying AirPods. Everyone else released their own wireless earbuds to compete, and also removes their headphone jacks for the same reason.
What’s a headphone jack?
the 3.5mm rounded hole where you can insert your wired earphones, wired headphones, or stereo speakers
What's a computer?
An iPad Pro, specifically
Oh, that thing is garbage. I prefer the 6.35mm RGA jacks for superior hi fidelity quality. It’s a shame they don’t make phones with those.
Hey guys look, I found a troll! Please don't feed them.
How dare. 6.35mm is superior and I for one want it on my phone. The larger jack size provides a greater surface area for conductance. Why is this important? Glad you asked, more surface area translates to less resistance at the junction, thus allowing more electrons to flow freely from your device to your ocular cavity, where sound is processed from compression waves into electromagnetic waves. The 6.35mm jack is the best option for hi-fi 256 bit color. As you can see, it’s all basic science. Source: I’m a stientist
Actually it coincided with IPX rating for smartphones. The last headphone jack smartphones did not have water resistance, but the newer models did. People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.
These days you can get both, but my phone has a 3.5mm jack and NO ipx rating that I could find
My rugged phone is IP68 but it has Usb C connector and SIM/SD tray, so adding a headphone jack while having an IPX rating seems not impossible.
My phone has IP68 with an usb-c and headphone jack, and the SIM/SD tray. Not a rugged phone though.
It's not impossible, they just didn't do it back then so we ended up in the situation we are in now. By the way, the DAC in my phone is low quality, so I hear popping and distortion when I play
http://plasticity.szynalski.com/
at the same time, my phone doesn't do output to a DAC through USB because it already has a 3.5mm port, so I can't use something higher quality
I don't think DAC is reason behind popping and distortion. Probably shit power circuit or amplifier.
It's both, because I hear little bells in the background even at low volume. An IEM is very sensitive so needs very little power, the amplifier will perform worse as it needs to output more power.
In fact when I use over ears, it sounds better because I increase the device volume which increases the input voltage
Anyway, the $9 Apple dongle blows my phone's 3.5mm jack out of the water. My tablet and desktop have the same issue, but when I connect the same devices to my ancient laptop they sound perfect.
The point is the 3.5mm jack actually gets me worse sound quality because my phone doesn't output audio to usb, so I only use it with my TWS. Which, by the way, also sound like crap in the same game, but it might just be Bluetooth issues
LOL imagine if capitalism actually worked this way...
Edit: People seem to be missing the point. I am aware that phones with 3.5mm jacks exist. I also just understand that capitalism and "free markets" don't actually work the way people seem to think they do. Maybe if the headphone jack was the most important feature to people, it would do better. Or maybe if it was an mp3 player and not a phone. Or maybe, simply, if it was manufactured by a brand people have heard of. Sometimes it's literally that simple.
But that isn't the case, is it?
There are literally phones still around with 3.5 jacks. You just don't want one.
There are still phones with 3.5mm jacks and they are not the best selling models
Maybe people aren't spending $500-$1200 on a device just because it has a headphone jack. Like that's anyone's top concern.
Zen phone 10 has everything you need and a 3.5mm jack
Why isn't it outselling the rest of them?
Are you asking me to explain microeconomics to you? Ask 100 people in the US if they've ever heard of Zen Phone, and 99 will tell you no.
And, again, that's nobody's top concern. Maybe if it was an mp3 player, rather than a phone, whether or not it has a headphone jack would be higher up on the priority list.
If it was that important, people would have heard about it
Exactly my point
So 3.5mm is actually a complaint from a loud minority
It never became a major selling point for the phones that still have it
Then why can they waterproof the usb plug-in but not the headphone jack?
That’s not Apple, that’s the free market. Samsung touted wired headphones and a headphone jack and the market still showed they wanted wireless.
But we had wireless headphones already. The choice to have both was nice. Not being able to charge and use headphones sucks. Also tiny e waste pods with tiny non recyclable batteries are terrible for the environment compared to a wired pair when thrown in a landfill.
No it's definitely Apple.
Or maybe people just need phones and there are only like 3 actual options.
That’s simply not true. Have you been in a mobile phone store recently? There’s far more than 3 brands of phone let alone 3 models per brand.
It would take a big dose of hopium to believe this will amount to anything.
The anti-trust pressure has increased with this administration. Lina Kahn has been effective at the FTC in bringing a number of cases forward.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ is a very well executed newsletter with more detailed information regarding anti-trust if you're interested.
She was pretty good on Planet Money : https://www.npr.org/2023/11/03/1197954506/lina-khan-interview-amazon-ftc-antitrust-paradox-monopoly
Yeah and hasn't she lost pretty much every case she's brought forward? She failed big fucking time with the Microsoft/Activision merger even though all the antitrust evidence was right in front of her nose. I'm glad the FTC is trying, because they're actually doing their job, but they're doing an awful job when it comes to actually being in court and proving their case.
People shit on Sony for trying to block the merger, but they absolutely were right for trying to block it and now games like starfield, the new Indiana Jones, and probably more in the future will be deliberately left off the PlayStation platform altogether. But that's all okay right? Because now you get call of duty on gamepass!!!!!!! RIGHT????!!?!???!????
I see a bunch of complaints against Kahn, but I haven't been able to find articles on what she did that someone else would have done to be more effective. I don't normally follow this type of news, so if anyone can point me to some articles, I'd appreciate it.
I've heard a few interviews with Kahn, and she sounds like someone looking to make a difference, so I'd like to cheer her on, but if she's not the right person for the job, it'd be nice to see some examples why. I'd think much could go on to make her lose without it necessarily being due to her actions or inactions.
https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2023/07/18/lina-khans-antitrust-losses-cast-doubt-on-her-sue-dont-settle-philosophy/?slreturn=20240221150002 apparently she's just taking the sledgehammer approach of suing companies instead of working with them to understand their motives and to make reasonable concessions that will benefit everyone. If those concession discussions fail then you sue and have more leverage in your case I guess. Either way, it's a fair criticism IMO, and for the record I'm not really a right leaning individual, I just think she's jumping into lawsuits without doing her homework first.
Dang paywall. That's at least something I can look into more directly though, so thank you.
Lemmy makes me feel right wing anymore. I think the general news and politics here might be worse than Reddit, which is a shame. There's a lot of things I'd like to learn or discuss, but half the threads might as well be bizarro MAGA rallies with how cultish they get.
I just came back to this post from one on Angela Chao, and just like the last one about that story, people are cheering on this lady's death because they don't like her brother-in-law. I haven't been able to find anything about Angela that would indicate she had it coming, but that isn't stopping anyone. If people have valid criticism of a person or idea, share it. Don't just keep shouting "such-and-such bad!" over and over.
It's getting worse and worse, completely agree. The reasonable people are getting pushed out by brainless zombies, just like on Twitter or something.
We need to work more on getting in the first few comments before they get there. If I come in and hot takes are all I find, I just move on. I'm sure others do the same.
It didn’t used to seem that way but some of the discussions I’ve had here are actually worse than reddit recently. Take a discussion about Instagram drug sale spammers. I mean, people selling likely counterfeit “xanax” etc to anyone on social media by spamming. Who would stand up for these scumbags? People on Lemmy, apparently, who consider themselves leftists and communicate like sophomoric 19 year olds. “Drugs should be legalized anyway!” Well, that’s not going to make it legal or safe for addictive drugs to be sold on social media and uh, Xanax is legal. I found discussion of the same article on Hacker News and the difference in quality of comments was vast.
Lol that's exactly the stuff I mean. Legalize drugs, sure. Make them safe and take the business from cartels. Legalize anonymous strangers selling random chemicals, nah.
It was good maybe the first 3 months of the Great Migration, then had a sharp decline. Those first few months were great.
I'm not here for anyone's militant views on politics, software licensing, diet, or religion. I just tend to avoid most comment sections anymore.
Why are so many people misspelling her surname? Or is the URL to the news article wrong?
I looked up the difference, and it seems that the majority of us have probably been raised in a place where Kahn is the more common spelling we'd encounter.
Substack 🙄
The content is good, so I support the content.
If all we ever do is hold purity contests over secondary and tertiary concerns, like the platform, we'll never accomplish anything.
I didn't say anything about the content. Just... Like... Substack 🙄
I'm willing to take the movement as a good sign. The fact that we haven't even been talking about this shit for decades now was just depressing. It's long past time for this shit, and the ball needs to get rolling.
There’s a lot of corporate competitive behavior that’s ok, when you’re one of many, that isn’t anymore when you dominate the market.
Apple has dominated the smartphone market since the iPhone 5 in the us. I’ve managed my works mdm tool for a decade and never have I seen the android collective share surpass 10% in the pie chart it shows me of versions
Looks like the stats are all over the place but iPhones are about 50% of US market +- 10%. Neither you nor I are representative
Very true, mine is just anecdotal evidence in the end, no matter how much it is
All I want is RCS on iPhone. I know Apple already said they're working on it, but I hope legal pressure like this will force them to make the RCS/iMessage integration actually work well (instead of half-assing it which I assume is what they want to do, cuz they want their users to feel frustrated when texting their Android friends)
Can't we just move past carrier managed messaging? I'd rather my telecom to just be dumb pipes and move everyone to Signal and similar.
The iMessage lock-in is too real for some of us. I know some iPhone users who won't even install FB Messenger (I know, I don't use it either. Fuck the Zuck) because it's not Apple/iMessage. I finally got my family on Signal and "OMG! We can send videos and pictures now!" Yeah, been saying it for years lol.
Me too, but isn’t this a chicken and egg situation?
Damn, I am stealing this. Too many good uses:
"She lives in a hopium den"
"Hopium addict"
"Hopium of the masses"
Oh it's a pretty common Internet thing these days. Hopium and copium.
We can hope. Happy to take a chunk out of Apple as they're often given a free pass as their marketing and branding is so good that customers lap it up.
*Sees EU fining Apple*
Oh shit we can tell corporations what to do!
This. Smells like me too (the expression, not the movement) as opposed to a well thought out plan as to how they’ll tackle the monopoly.
Biden appointed a bunch of pretty vehemently anti-monopoly people to power, this is just how long it actually takes them to conduct an investigation thorough enough to bring suit.
The investigation actually started in 2019 under Trump's DoJ.
Right. Real Estate is a shit show and has been a shit show for decades with corporations buying out SFH homes and properties, driving up prices and making them unaffordable for the average American. If I was stack list of problems to tackle impacting Americans, that would be pretty high up the list instead of a tech company.
Of course, you can and should do both, but considering time and money are finite resources, it’s very on the nose to pick this fight instead of the one that impacts Americans the most.
I don’t think monopolies should exist, but also, we should be looking at regulations and law making instead of law suits.
I don’t know how much of that falls under the DOJ’s purview. Based on what I’ve heard from various congressional staffers, a physical letter mailed to your congressional representative actually does mean something. You can also go to your city council meetings and tell the city council they should do something about housing.
Oh, I’m in the heart of a place well known for exorbitant property values, and there’s been plenty of talk of “fixing housing”. Literally everybody runs on the platform of lowering property values, so I’m sure the letting your congressional staffer know has been done to death.
In addition to that, countless articles, op-eds, research has been published in the last 4 years alone and the point I’m making is, that this DOJ move seems more political theater than anything, which is surprising coming from folks that are supposedly about consumer rights and protections.
We need actual problems to be solved, not grand gestures and showboating of supposed take downs of “monopolies” when the laws around monopolistic practices are about as ancient as the presidential candidates trying to win points with their voter base.
Also, as everybody knows, governments can only do one thing at a time.
Awhile back a non tech person at work got hoodwinked into a sales pitch by a no name “AI” vendor. They, of course, invited a distribution list of all the IT and IT adjacent people to this pitch, thinking their ingenuity was going to transform our workplace and they were going to get accolades.
During the pitch, the sales guy (or CEO?) talked about Google getting surprised by Open AI, and that they rushed to build Bard, so they “could have their own ‘Me Too’ moment.” (With an inflection to indicate the Me Too comment was a reference.)
While I was watching people unmute, stay silent, then mute again, multiple group chats lit up at once.
(And the guy either didn’t understand LLM’s, or was hoping we really didn’t. It was peak marketing speak. He got crushed in the Q&A, ultimately revealing that the extent of his offering was to resell access to an established LLM vendor.)
Hahahaha that’s awesome! All the while scary to see the snakeoil-ism in tech.
Be prepared for a lot of hand-wringing about "security".
Apple, Microsoft, and Google all learned in the last couple years "security" shuts down any arguments, and they use it at every turn to justify whatever they want, regardless of the actual dangers or alternative mitigation methods they could take.
If our modern software security means anti-competitive behavior and user lock-in tactics are OK, then that's a problem with our security practices, and we need to reevaluate some things.
If they utter "security for children" the government will probably not only drop the lawsuit but pay Apple $20 billion.
they could get an extra 50 billion if they say “security for children, against terrorists”
Make it $100 billion if the terrorist children have brown faces.
And deduct all billions if we're talking about domestic terrorism, or if there's any mention of insurrection.
Market security maybe What's next im not allowed to read the EULA because i may come up with nefarious ways to still use the service?
If you can read the EULA, then you can learn how to skirt around it, and therefore, letting you read the EULA is against the spirit of the EULA, and should be banned.
They learned this line from the government. You can't criticise goverments after they utter the magical national security buzzwords.
With Apple tipping over the ~50% market share in the US and with the current rulings in the EU, maybe the US DOJ smell blood in the water. Hopefully something unusually good for the consumer will come of this, but I won't be shocked if it doesn't.
I only recently found out about iPhones having 50% market share in the US and that's insane to me. I think anyone who's used both Android and iPhones a lot knows that iPhones are both a worse product and worse value for money, so in a fair market they would be the minority
They're certainly a much worse value for the money and intentionally constrained in ways that maximize the profits of Apple services by making it inconvenient or impossible to use alternatives, but the UI is substantially better than Android. Aside from that and Apple device interoperability benefits, nearly any Android phone is a better choice for most people.
Hard disagree. iOS UI/UX is sub par compared to Android. Consistent visuals and fancier animations don't mean that the UI is good.
I find the UI to be so much worse lol
Agree to disagree I guess! I used an iPhone X as my daily driver for 3 years and was overjoyed to get the Android UI back when I switched back. The iPhone visuals are more consistent but the UX is significantly worse imo. There are a few things that I reckon are mainly just Apple being stubborn and refusing to admit they were wrong - e.g. the lack of a back button
Yeah, hard disagree
For one, you can make Android look/behave like anything you want.
In general, I agree. I'll add two things:
Still, I'll take it over an iPhone any day.
The IOS UI is so cumbersome
The UI is terrible. Unintuitive and can't be customized. What's good about it?
For children and drunks, maybe.
What? Unbelievable. I'm shocked. Shocked, I say. This really comes as a surprise. I would've never expected this. No one would have seen this coming. This is really outrageous. They are innocent. I can't comprehend this. No way! It's not acceptable! /i
– Apple Fan, probably (without the irony flag then)
I mean I’m an Apple user, although not exclusively, and I am very surprised, not because Apple doesn’t deserve it, they absolutely need to be reigned in like all big tech companies. I’m surprised as hell that the US government in 2024 is attempting to crack down an extremely profitable business. You love to see it
lol this is going to go nowhere
I don’t think so. EU did push through with reform, the US will join sooner or later.
The EU passed a massive, sweeping law. This is a federal lawsuit in front of an infamously conservative and pro-business Supreme Court.
Little will come of this.
SCOTUS rarely (like ultra rare) gets involved in technical economic cases -- they don't have the expertise and single-issue cases which don't present a Constitutional question are beneath the Court. Cases like this go to judges who have experience in the details of antitrust actions and are well-versed in the economic and marketplace analysis required by the type of action the DOJ is bringing here.
And Apple will appeal and appeal until they get to SCOTUS where they will win that appeal
Dude, you’re out of your element. SCOTUS doesn’t take cases to reverse errors of fact.
The DOJ will lose because we don’t have modern antitrust laws designed for modern industries, not because of anything SCOTUS is going to do.
This SCOTUS will clearly do whatever they want. And if all your argument consists of is ad hominem attacks, this conversation is over.
I mean no they won’t. Also, you being out of your element isn’t ad hominem; it questions the argument. You’re out of your depth on that one.
Insulting me personally rather than attacking my argument is an ad hominem:
Source
Saying one is wrong, or doesn't know what they're talking about, is not ad hominem. Maybe it's a language thing, but to me saying someone is wrong is equivalent to saying their argument is wrong. And saying someone is out of their element/depth is the same as saying they're wrong on the subject, aka their argument is wrong.
Even without the DMA, the EU and US have very different judicial systems. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't really understand the specifics, but if I had to describe it in a very hand-wavy fashion from my anecdotal, non-scientific experiences, US courts are more likely to favor preserving individual/personal freedoms over the common public good, and vice versa in the European system.
The EU passed new laws to address new needs. The US is trying to see if they can provide consumer protection with existing consumer protection laws from the past.
Passing consumer protection laws is pretty hard when people don’t vote enough democrats into the senate and house. The GOP hates consumer protection regulation.
At least it happened.
If it was all Blue States, if probably agree, but it does include a few Deep Red States with North Dakota, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Tennessee, etc. That makes me cautiously optimistic.
Because???
If was all Blue States, with a Democratic Federal DOJ, it's quite possible that it's just political messaging. With a mix of Blue & Red States, it's still possible it's messaging or a (rare) common-enemy, but it's more likely they think something's actually there, and they don't want to waste their time playing nice with the "other side".
Bet you're not quite right on that.
Kick their asses DOJ!
Apple did some sort of "tech innovations" through years, but its economical success has always been based on its locked down ecosystem.
Apple's marketing about its customers being part of an elite, hence zero compatibility with the 'mass', is disgusting imho.
Glad to hear it could be over, especially if it comes from US lawmakers.
EU has been trying to regulate them for years.
Were perhaps finally getting somewhere with this. I'm still afraid it's too slow though.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66708571
#New iPhone, new charger: Apple bends to EU rules
I think they were fine before, because they were offering the best experience for the people who want someone else to configure things for them and make decisions on privacy, security, etc., for them. Problem now is that they no longer offer much in the way of brand new user experiences that no one else offers, and additionally they don't prioritize the user's privacy and convenience and prioritize how much money they can make with the centralized user information they control and don't allow the user to make decisions on their own privacy and security.
Did EU bite US?
We're contagious, and we're not sorry
Good, don't sorry, bite more.
Kinky! Are you on Recon?
👀
Can you be more contagious? Virulently so? Pandemic level? I need some of that good EU user privacy law plague in my life.
Uuuh careful what you wish for, that's how you get a Napoléon
As long as he destroys the HRE
We'll stamp Europe with
spqrWith French empireNow we just need the US to force carriers to automatically unlock phones after they are paid off.
They do actually. What you're talking about is unlocking the bootloader.
I wanted to borrow a friend's [old] phone to try out graphene but he got it from Verizon and they keep the bootloaders locked so it was worthless.
A lot of carriers make you wait a certain period of time before unlocking. I'm hoping that I can get my phone unlocked so I can install graphene OS. I got a good deal on it so that's why I bought it locked, I'm going to degoogle it as much as possible until I can get the bootloader unlocked.
Hang a phone carrier unlocked and unlocking the bootloader are very different things.
I am well aware but you can't unlock the boot loader without having a phone carrier unlocked.
It's been a while since I did it, but every single time I've unlocked a bootloader it's been on a carrier-locked device. I'd usualy do it to remove carrier bloat.
Carrier Unlocking is required before a phone can be bootloader unlocked, at least on my Pixel 8.
Ahh - I think I see what you're getting at.
I think the Pixel allows unlocking the bootloader, so it's just the carrier in the way.
Most phones have to be hacked to unlock the bootloader because of the manufacturer locking it, so the carrier doesn't really matter since you're having to bypass locks anyway.
We all know that these accusations are true.
So much so that I need to ask: is it really illegal to do all these things?
Smarter Americans in that past recognized that freedom, including the free market, doesn't just happen of its own accord, that it has to be defended, legislated. That is how antitrust laws came to be in arguably the most capitalist nation on earth.
Apathetic Americans now have lost sight of the importance of protecting their freedoms.
"Illegal" is not just some hypothetical moral absolute. It is the politics of defending one's values. Americans clearly no longer value either their freedoms or the free market.
The EU said so, and the US did successfully sue valve for monopoly practices.
EU decisions carry no legal weight in US, and I’m sure the laws are very different. Maybe it signals opportunity and regulator opinion but they’re completely independent decisions
Except it wasnt successful since its still in the court, and Valve has counter sued for the lawsuit "abuse(ing) the legal process and interfer(ing) with Valve’s relationships with its customers"
Oh lol my b. I saw the ads for being eligible for compensation and thought they lost.
No, these are not illegal activities until you add “as a monopoly”. Antitrust laws are fine with all sorts of behavior as part of competition but not when you dominate a market and it keeps new competitors out
Everything here will hinge on whether Apple is a monopoly in the markets of concern. I’m sure there are legal definitions and precedents for that.
I’ve wondered that in the past when people say Apple has a monopoly - there seems to be choice in the market. One can function fine with an Android phone. But people have said “they have a monopoly on iPhones” which doesn’t make much sense to me. Of course they do, but that’s not the same as a monopoly on mobile phones. Also having a monopoly isn’t illegal, only abusing it is. It’s not legal to have a successful proprietary product?
Well, now you have your answers here in all detail, but it seems you didn't read them.
I didn't say I was wondering now. I said I was wondering in the past. In any event, i expect to find out from the court case, not online comments from people who probably lack expertise in antitrust law and are not attorneys.
I also wonder the same, and wish you’d point to those answers, but I think that’s what this whole thing is : a day in court to establish those answers
If you enjoy a good laugh, then head over to hackernews to see the meltdown apple bros are having: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778999
The apple watch thing is kinda interesting.
So you make a watch and it has super tight integrations with OS level software on the phone.
I can't imagine they can force apple to write an Android app, which doesn't even have the same system level access as their OS app and provide some sort of degraded service.
Maybe they could force them to let it function in some limited way but where do you draw the line on forcing them to write android apps?
They don't have to force them to make an app. Instead they could make them provide an interface that an app can use. Instead of their current strategy of thwarting any attempt to make their ecosystem interoperable with competitor's devices. I imagine them instantly killing Beeper's connection to iMessage was a part of this move.
No, they can’t really force it. But it’s evidence in support of the accusation.
But I wanted to point out, Android is much, much more permissive in what peripherals and apps can do. And they’d likely be able to bake Android support in by utilizing the already available Wear OS API.
That's kinda true, but not what I was getting at. Android has restrictive background processing limits and the APIs around it keep getting more restrictive and the OEMs like Samsung keep ignoring the rules of how things should work and break your apps when you do it right anyway.. Ultimately it's incredibly difficult to write an app and guarantee background work.
Apple, is even worse on its restrictions of background work, but Apple owns the OS and and can bypass it all for their watch.
Apple will never get to bypass the fuckery you have to deal with on Android, only the Android OEMs get that.
They don't have to make extra apps, just remove restrictions that make some functionality exclusive to iPhones or Apple Watches. So iPhones get the same access to Apple Watches as other phones, and Apple Watches get the same access to iPhones as other watches.
I think the point though is you might be able to connect a Garmin to your iPhone but only Apple Watches get special access to certain APIs because "security".
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit.
It alleges that Apple “selectively” imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical ways of accessing the phone, according to a release.
“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote in a press release.
“For years, Apple responded to competitive threats by imposing a series of ‘Whac-A-Mole’ contractual rules and restrictions that have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers, impose higher fees on developers and creators, and to throttle competitive alternatives from rival technologies,” DOJ antitrust division chief Jonathan Kanter said in a statement.
Apple is the second tech giant the DOJ has taken on in recent years after filing two separate antitrust suits against Google over the past two administrations.
It’s instituted new rules through the Digital Markets Act to place a check on the power of gatekeepers of large platforms, several of which are operated by Apple.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
heard this on radio first
United States v. Grinnell Corp. (1966).
United States v. Aluminum Co. of America (1945)
In my opinion, the first quote doesn’t apply at all. Unless you can express how Apple is objectively superior?
And Apple smartphone market share is at the higher end of your second quote. When all competitors are much lower, it may very well be that it is considered a monopoly. Though that’s literally what this case will determine.
Objectively superior? Superior user experience is entirely subjective, but that is the main selling point of almost everything Apple has done in the last 17 years
Marketing and reality are two different things. It's definitely not a superior experience. When Apple's stuff stops working, and it frequently does, the user has zero control to fix anything. Instead, they're shoehorned into having no recourse other than to use Apple's support, making them entirely dependent on the company in order to use their device.
Apple purposely hamstrings the user experience to exert control over users.
I think you’re just proving that it is entirely subjective. If it was objectively an inferior experience, I’m confident they wouldn’t be nearly as popular as they are. I get that there are plenty of people who believe firmly that total control over their own electronics is the best experience, and I can understand that. I enjoy tinkering in a Linux machine as much as any Lemmy user. However the vast majority of people do not want to be overwhelmed with the amount of ways they can configure their devices to the point that they can’t discern one choice from another. And my iPhone does exactly what I need it to just as much as my Android did.
Yeah, marketing is definitely part of it. They make their devices sound, look, and appear like they’re some sort of luxury experience. But there’s definitely something extremely smooth about the way Apple’s suite of software works with their hardware, and how their hardware works with each other, and I appreciate that for what it is.
Whoever down voted you is coping, this is easily seen all over their products. RCS, headphone ports, charging ports, not allowing you to side load apps, the walled garden, yadda yadda. Apple makes good (really expensive) hardware but the rest is marketing.
Apple has been more successful in the US, so by definition one could conclude they’ve done something better than competitors, whether it’s the products, timing, or something else about their business activities. People aren’t forced to buy iPhones any more than they are forced to buy Android.
By this logic all monopolies could be described as being better.
I think you could analyze it based on a company's history. Some companies clearly didn't earn a monopoly, for instance if they had a market handed to them by the government. Or, if they did the thing that's actually illegal under antitrust law - used a monopoly in one market to expand to another.
By this same logic, on a global scale they are not dominant, so they can be argued to be a worse product, not superior. Therefore, their dominance on the US must be forced by coercive actions and categorized as a monopoly.
Their actions in the US market and tastes of US customers are not necessarily the same as elsewhere in the world. If Apple concentrated marketing in the US, for example, that would be sufficient.
Lol nice
Epic was unsuccessful so I don’t have hopes for this
what issues do people here have with buying a phone not made by Apple?
did you read the article?
Yes. A laundry list of reasons to not buy an Apple phone. I had no trouble finding plenty of great alternatives, what problem are you running into?
Don’t piss off the small phone fans at the DOJ.
The crux of this suit seems to be that the DOJ believes that Apple needs to make its hardware fair to everyone that can develop on it, and make its software fair to all possible hardware that can run it, which is particularly interesting because Apple’s main product seems to be a pleasant and easy user experience that cuts through the physical barriers of the pieces of hardware it sells. And part of that user experience is the sense of security that is supposed to come with knowing that Apple is (more or less) able to decide who is allowed to access important, secure elements of their hardware.
On the software side of things, I don’t fully understand why or how the DOJ could force Apple to develop better integration support for cross-vendor hardware usage? Why do they need to go the extra mile to make an Apple Watch work well with an Android phone? Because the DOJ says so? I mean, sure I guess that would be better for everyone but it’s a weird thing to require.
Is this really the biggest problem in the US right now? Can the justice department maybe spend some time on gun violence, climate denial, misinformation, dark money in politics…. Like 1000 other things that are literally killing people before we worry about this? Or is this just because it’s an election year and they think it will be popular…
When your family does spring cleaning, does the entire family all focus on each specific thing individually, or are you capable of collectively handling multiple things at the same time?
Not necessarily the best example, if you split the work up too much, you can end up with a bunch of unfinished projects, when everyone works together on specific items together you are more likely to get specific things done quickly and have them be more fully 'completed.'
Source: Actually have a family, actually do spring cleaning.
Well, in the case of the DOJ the “individual family member” is a group of people. I was just pointing out that one thing being done doesn’t mean other things are not also being done.
were you breathing as you typed this out?
While I prefer remaining in the Walled Garden because Apple makes it a veritable Eden compared to so many customer-hostile apps, I can see this. I still think the Walled Garden is better for customers (assuming you can also choose a different ecosystem) and it’s ok for one of many competitors, the rules have to change once you dominate the market. se la vie.
I want to be able to choose a walled garden for my phone, just like I want to choose for game compatibility on my laptop, and ultimate freedom on my servers. Those are the right tools for my needs
You can only use an Apple Watch with an iPhone. While you CAN use one without a phone, you need an iPhone to configure it the first time (or if you need to reset).
Thry are very locked in.
I once got an Apple Watch as a bonus at work. Had to sell it to a buddy because I couldn't use it without an iPhone. So dumb.
I'm always impressed how far corporations managed to convince people to be loyal to them. Not saying it's a person's fault, I used to fall pretty badly for corporate bullshit myself.
The whole "walled garden" concept is inherently anti-consumer. Have you ever asked yourself why there hasn't been any real innovation in the phone/smartwatch fields for years now. Or why phones aren't cheap to fix anymore. Or why battery life gets so bad after two or so years that most people are forced to buy a new one.
Things don't have to be this way. We can have well designed products that work together without all the lock in.
I completely disagree. As long as there are valid choices, an option to choose a walled garden has benefits. It’s only a problem when that’s your only realistic choice. In this case, as long as Android is common enough to be a valid choice and there are multiple Android manufacturers, then you really don’t see any of these problems.
If you don’t think there’s any innovation in phones, either
Your first point is fair, and I'm not really sure if it's just the technology maturing or a symptom of stifled innovation. Personally, I think there are still innovations to be made in this space, even big ones. But it's not just Apple's fault. The duopoly of iOS and Android has completely cornered the international market, new players have almost no chance, and the 30% cut app developers have to give Apple or Google puts them at a big disadvantage. I think a shakeup in the phone market would be very good for consumers.
I just have annecdotal evidence from people I know with iPhones (and mine, too, though it has been a while). It seemed to me, at least, that Apple phones tend to slow down quite a bit after a few years, and they start having battery problems. Some people I know seem to have gotten lucky with the battery thing, others not so much. But if it works well for you, then great!
More importantly, the "garden" is not the problem. If someone chooses to, they should be able to only use Apple products, download only Apps from the Appstore, and trust Apple with their data. It is the "walled" part of the deal which is the problem. Once inside, there should be an out. That is what the DOJ and the EU are trying to accomplish.
“Please sir, don't take away my manacles. I don't know how to not be a slave!”
Passing this would destroy Apple’s entire business, where they spend their effort and money deeply integrating their products to work together.
Instead, they’ll have to spend their time and money creating an API to let random Joe make a watch for an ecosystem they did nothing to create, foster, or maintain.
Maybe they shouldn't have based their business on monopoly?
People don’t need to use an iPhone. A symptom of our declining society is expecting people or businesses to accommodate your personal interests instead of you making an adult decision.
Man, can you fanboy any harder?
Apple has some aggressive "in-club" style marketing and exclusivity practices.
iMessage intentionally massively degrades user experience when a non-iMessage user is in the chat, to encourage their iPhone users to harass their friends into getting an iPhone too.
The cruelty is the point. They want their users to ostracize their friends into converting friends and family to their platform.
I hate to say it man, but you are talking to a brick wall. That don't understand, and more importantly they don't want to understand.
And I’m speaking to a bunch of incel teenagers who are baby raging about a green bubble and how their parents won’t get them an iPhone.
That’s literally an argument in the DoJ’s case, btw. A case led by incels.
And that tells me everything I need to know about your opinions. Horray for the block feature
Thanks for being my first, I guess
Tbh I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but this take is embarrassing and doesn’t even make sense in the modern day. You realize plenty of Androids are the same price, if not more expensive, than iPhones right? What year do you think it is?
How is “cruelty the point” while you’re saying that expanding their market share is the point? That would make cruelty a means to an end, not an end itself.
A symptom of your declining society is expecting that the rules in place could be ignored.
It is true, nobody is forced to buy an iPhone but this not means that Apple could play in the game with a different set of rules from everyone else.
What existing rules? The rules designed for 19th/20th century oil companies that don’t apply to modern tech companies?
New rules are being written.
They’re playing a different game because they’re the ones who built the ballpark they’re playing in. Don’t like the game? Don’t go to the ballpark.
It’s so exhausting how you people simply can’t accept “don’t buy Apple” and leave it alone.
They can be old and technically it can be a stretch to apply them to a tech company, but they are still here.
That's good
As long as the ballpark is not a problem for other people, ok. But if the ballpark is a problem for the people playing...
"Don't buy Apple" is not a giustification for Apple to do something that is illegal, at least from the DOJ point of view.
Boo fucking hoo, android has done it for years and is fine. Apple doesn't want to do it because if they don't they can charge as much as they want for things because you can only get it from them. If they put half as much into innovation as they do into walling everything off they might actually have new ideas instead of the exact same phone with minor hardware and software upgrades that makes it the exact same phone but with a heftier price tag each subsequent generation.
To be fair, the unwalled garden of Android hasn't really come back with anything compelling in a decade, either. Just iterative hardware improvements.
Which is fine. The space has matured. There will be other frontiers.
But at least this might result in a decrease of friction between users with different platforms.
I mean, I'm using the fold 3 which I am really liking and is definitely something new. But it is true more could be being done.
You don’t need to buy an iPhone, and if you don’t have one then this doesn’t affect you and you’re baby raging about nothing. If you do have one and are still mad, then perhaps evaluate how little self control you have over your purchases.
Lol, try and lecture all you want little troll, you are just making yourself look like even more of a tool and a child. I couldn't care less either way what your opinion is because you have literally no idea what anyone else's circumstances are and you think you are better. Go study more and do a little more growing up next time you think you have any leg to stand on in judging what others situations are.
You mean, like the business model that Android has been using for years?
Or Windows / Linux have been using for decades?
What a weird thing to paint in a bad light.
Android is an ecosystem made up of OEMs under the lead of Google, and all these OEMs have different business models. Google’s however, is an ad-based monopoly. Totally different business model. You referring to Android as a single entity shows how clueless you are about this topic.
Mobile is a different environment compared to desktop, so you’re comparing Apples to oranges.
I think that is, indeed, the point.
You think you want this, but you really don’t. If Apple is gone then Android is all that exists and THAT IS A REAL MONOPOLY.
I never said I wanted Apple gone, nor does their exploitative and abusive business model being stopped requires them to cease to exists. Get a grip, straw men don't look good on sidewalks, and you look like a fool when you bring one out to fight with it.