Government is still one single entity at this point, though, regardless of whether or not there are separate branches. We need MORE!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
UK Begins Market Investigation into Apple and Google's Mobile Dominance
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
They can hardly do worse than governments…can they? I mean the bar is so so low. If they just avoid genocide for 50 years whatever else they do they will be way ahead.
It’s much better where they secretly do it through donations and lobbying. Good point.
This investigation is another giant example of government wasting time and money. Apple and Google won their market dominance by providing more value / utility than their competition. No one forced the billions of people who buy their products or use their services, they did it out of their own free will. Now politicians and bureaucrats want to reduce their incentive to keep innovating lest they become even more successful. In the end consumers will be harmed by this, not helped.
Last edited:
I find it interesting that you separate open source from market. If Linux had 100% market share there’d be far less competition in the market.
Would love to see you hear this one day, when you call 911.
There would not have been a need to "keep up" if Microsoft, Palm, Blackberry, Nokia hadn't fallen asleep at the wheel. They had major headstarts on Apple and should have been leading, not following. This is where they failed.
Look at the reactions and mentality:
Microsoft:
Black CEO 2007: Balsillie on the iPhone in February 2007: "It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers ... But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it."
Palm: “Is Apple serious competition?: Palm CEO Ed Colligan seems downright nonchalant about rumors that Apple may introduce a mobile phone to market in the coming year,” ...
Asleep at the wheel.
Apple's monopoly on app distribution is rapidly coming to an end and it can't come soon enough.
No you can’t, it’s just Safari WebKit with a different UI.
This investigation is going to cost British taxpayers a lot of money for no reason. Plus the anti-competition and anti-markets authority has a vested interest in government overreach to justify their existence.
Well, yes, but any new competition could simply take the same stuff and start competing, there is no show stoppers. Just like there are derivatives of Debian->Ubuntu->Mint or RedHat->CentOS/AlmaLinux and so on.
Government will never reach a sensible conclusion on matters like this. The bureaucrats who run the CMA have a vested interest in justifying their existence and fabricating reasons to grow their budgets and expand their power.
Read Snow Crash, I think they can do worse.
The United States is basically an experiment in corporate government. They started with very high ideals (theoretically.) So far so good…?
First, it was a joke. Secondly, market share is not necessarily a commercial thing. Market share: "The portion of a market controlled by a particular company or product."
Example: 10 total computer users
- Windows - 6 users
- Mac - 3 users
- Linux - 1 user
The convenience and potentially unique functionality of mobile apps are a major part of the mobile software business and if Apple is restricting access to apps on their dominant mobile OS (iOS), it could be an antitrust violation.
My reply was in response to a comment about alternatives. Just because IE was included with Windows didn't mean end users had to use it or couldn't download alternative browsers (or browser engines) such as Netscape Navigator, or use Netscape Navigator on alternative Macintosh, Linux, etc. machines. Again, the availability of alternatives did not and does not eliminate the possibility of related antitrust violations.
As far as Apple is concerned here, in various ways they are even more restrictive than Microsoft was. Apple not only restricts alternative app stores, browser engines, sideloading, etc. on iPhones/iOS they sell and those sold by third party retailers like AT&T, Best Buy, etc., but maintains similar restrictions on what end users can do.
You had Microsoft and Blackberry once upon a time all in the market together along with Apple and Google, people chose either Google or Apple as the other two were complete crap and Blackberry was dying anyway. There is only a duopoly because that's what the people chose.
I'd rather a duopoly than 50 different app stores with poorly designed apps in each one.
I'd rather a duopoly than 50 different app stores with poorly designed apps in each one.
How does that matter?
Beneath it all, it's the same set of machine language instructions at some level, too.
Nope, the interpretation matters and goes over to implementation and compiler optimization. It’s all too complex to simplify it the way you‘re trying, heh.
Vertical integration is not illegal. Apple could lock down Mac to only allow apps from the Mac pp Store. It would not be illegal. It would be suicidal since they are now imposing controls where they never were. People would balk. Similar to how Microsoft tried to do that with the MS App Store on Windows S (or whatever it was called). It never worked since people are used to being able to load software from alternate sources. Doesn't make it restrictive or ant-consumer at all.
As for AT&T, Best Buy, etc - The sales channel is irrelevant. Just because you can buy an iPhone at Best Buy does not automatically mean it should be more open than the vertical structure permits. The retailers may price below MSRP (which Apple does not like, tries to stop, and can sever reseller agreements over) but no reseller may sell below the MAP set by Apple and I would bet MSRP and MAP are very close for products like the iPhone.
All that said - let me run MacOS on my iPad (if even only in a docked mode)!
Yeah, let's replace capitalism with state-run economies. Heck, that's never been tried before, has it? What could possibly go wrong?
For what it's worth, I agree, entirely.
China could come up with a functional mobile OS; they may already have one. It might not be as consumer-friendly as the others, but it would be a lot easier for them to control. I think the Chinese government would consider this to be a win.