Apple Could Soon Face 'Sweeping' U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit

[OriginalAppleGuy]

• How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.
  • UM yeah - supposed to be like that. In fact, there are TONS of products out there that only work with their manufacturer. Called "accessories". Just the other day I was looking for a swivel table for a couch. Has a pole that fits in to the center console. Looked for 3rd party options and guess what? THEY ONLY WORKED WITH THEIR COMPANY'S PRODUCTS. OMG - should I go to the Justice dept over this?
• How Apple locks competitors out of iMessage.
  • Thank you for doing that. The color of the bubble lets me know if the text message is staying within the Apple ecosystem and thus remaining encrypted. But their messages still come through. They are NOT locked out of only sending between systems. Hope a judge sees through this.
    
• How Apple blocks other financial firms from offering tap-to-pay services similar to Apple Pay on the iPhone.
  • I won't use other "financial firms" tap to pay services as I don't trust them. Apple is said to protect it's NFC architecture and I like it that way.
• Whether Apple favors its own apps and services over those provided by third-party developers.
  • There could be some truth to this. Lets see what happens.
    
• How Apple has blocked cloud gaming apps from the App Store.
  • Have they? Let's see what happens.
• How Apple restricts the iPhone's location services from devices that compete with AirTag.
  • Huh? The other devices have their own apps. What's the problem?
• How App Tracking Transparency impacted the collection of advertising data.
  • Whoop tee doo. So software vendors have to allow advertisers to snoop on users of their systems?
• In-app purchase fees collected by Apple.
  • So what. Everything has fees. There's a cost to provide infrastructure and IT's NOT CHEAP. OMG - really? AND there's value to what Apple provides.

PLEASE don't let us end up in a world of crap like what you see in the other options out there. Apple did all of us a HUGE favor for the mobile device industry. Many of you may not be aware of the hold cell providers had on OS's, apps, basic functionality of the handsets of the time. It was absolutely ridiculous.

 

[BaldiMac]

A horribly subpart experience and design on the phone hugely limited.

I was asked about access to iOS without using Apple IP and services. It was a simple answer. The fact that you consider the experience of using iOS without Apple's IP and services to be "horribly subpar", shows the value of Apple's IP and services.

The argument given for the Apple Tax is insane. Apple is demanding 15-30% cut over being a payment processor. Nothing more nothing less. A PAYMENT PROCESSOR.

No. That's just something that people made up to make things seem unreasonable. Apple is charging for the value that the provide as a platform developer. As evidenced by their decision to continue to charge a platform fee even when they don't process payments such as the Netherlands dating app situation.

Spotify is required to using the Apple App store so you can not use the argument it is to pay for the review process. That is APPLE's choice to require everyone to go threw the App store so saying that is should be paid for by others to be a PAYMENT PROCESSOR. Apple provides very little support for spotify in this case. Next to none yet they demand a huge cut to be a payment processor.

Again, you're deliberately choosing to ignore the value that Apple provides developers in creating a platform.

If that really is supposed to be the only way, then breaking up Apple might become a necessity at some point.

That's nonsense. You asked for a way to offer developers' apps and services on iOS without using Apple's IP and services. What did you expect?

 

[Skyscraperfan]

How is it ok for you to have the liberty to choose not to go to specific countries different than my liberty to choose not to use a phone ecosystem that is compromised by forced third party app stores and apps?

Do you see the similarity? Why is it ok for your liberty to choose and not mine?

That similarity only works if the fact that others get out of the closed ecosystem affects your security. Even if something like a virus has infected one iPhone, Apple should still be able to make sure that it does not spread to other iPhones.

 

[ozaz]

How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.

• UM yeah - supposed to be like that. In fact, there are TONS of products out there that only work with their manufacturer. Called "accessories". Just the other day I was looking for a swivel table for a couch. Has a pole that fits in to the center console. Looked for 3rd party options and guess what? THEY ONLY WORKED WITH THEIR COMPANY'S PRODUCTS. OMG - should I go to the Justice dept over this?

This is a false equivalence. The reason Apple is under scrutiny is because as one of only 2 significant OS providers they have significant position of power in the smartphone industry, and the market for smartphone accessories, apps, and services is large and viewed as particularly important. Both the potential for anticompetitive practice and the potential impact of such practice is large. I doubt your couch manufacturer (or any individual couch manufacturer) is as dominant in the couch industry and I doubt the market for couch accessories is as important to the economy.

 

[ozaz]

No. That's just something that people made up to make things seem unreasonable. Apple is charging for the value that the provide as a platform developer. As evidenced by their decision to continue to charge a platform fee even when they don't process payments such as the Netherlands dating app situation.

What does Apple charge in this scenario (when not acting as payment processor)? A fee to provide a development platform, and to review, list and distribute apps is obviously justified. And I can see an argument for that fee to scale as a function of number of updates and amount of downloads.

A fee to process payments is also justified if an app maker wishes to use Apple for this role, but not allowing app makers to include a link inside their app to their own payment processor doesn't seem reasonable.

 

[BaldiMac]

What does Apple charge in this scenario (when not acting as payment processor)?

I think they reduced their commission by 3% (27%/12%) if I remember correctly. Of course, they now have to deal with billing and auditing the apps that took advantage of it. I doubt anyone saved money. However, what developers such as the Match Group were after was control of pricing, so they can bilk consumers with variable pricing schemes, build consumer databases, and other anti-consumer nonsense.

A fee to provide a development platform, and to review, list and distribute apps is obviously justified. And I can see an argument for that fee to scale as a function of number of updates and amount of downloads.

Yep.

A fee to process payments is also justified if an app maker wishes to use Apple for this role, but not allowing app makers to include a link inside their app to their own payment processor doesn't seem reasonable.

Seems reasonable to me from a consumer prospective. Yes, I see the argument from a developer prospective, but the benefit of getting access to Apple's platform for nothing more than $99/year seems worth it.

 

[lartola]

• How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.
  • UM yeah - supposed to be like that. In fact, there are TONS of products out there that only work with their manufacturer. Called "accessories". Just the other day I was looking for a swivel table for a couch. Has a pole that fits in to the center console. Looked for 3rd party options and guess what? THEY ONLY WORKED WITH THEIR COMPANY'S PRODUCTS. OMG - should I go to the Justice dept over this?

Not true. That does not apply to smartwatches. Every single other smartwatch in the market (samsung, fitbit, garmin, google pixel, etc) works with any phone you may have, even with an iphone, just so long as you download the respective app to pair your phone with it. Only the apple watch is restricted to exclusively work with an iphone. What other reason could there be for that besides apple wanting to force more iphone sales, i.e. money?

 

[fourthtunz]

And who else uses those apps? Not iPhone users!

🙄

I use what's app when Im in another country and I don't want to pay cell fees. But yeah, most of the time not!

 

[1129846]

[*]How Apple restricts the iPhone's location services from devices that compete with AirTag.

• Huh? The other devices have their own apps. What's the problem?
  

• 
  On this one a big difference is the other apps can not update their tags locations very easily. Those apps location services are heavy restricted to the default of only went using the app plus when they want to always on then you get the endless messages of app has used your location X number of times and encourages to reduce it to the only went using which greatly reduces access. App needs to be open often time for location services to fully work.
  
  Add in heavy restrictions to bluetooth access which again has issue. Compare that to air tags that does not even need to use an app. Any Apple device will update location and has full access to location services. Screw what the user says it has it to update the location.
  
  Apple reduced the access right around the time Air tags first came out and since then have reduce the access more and more while their access expands.
  
  This gets into a larger issue of bluetooth tracker which Apple is just as guilty of having those stalking issues as everyone else if not even worse than others due to Apple device network being very powerful. Apple reduces other access and more support themselves.

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

• How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.
  • UM yeah - supposed to be like that. In fact, there are TONS of products out there that only work with their manufacturer. Called "accessories". Just the other day I was looking for a swivel table for a couch. Has a pole that fits in to the center console. Looked for 3rd party options and guess what? THEY ONLY WORKED WITH THEIR COMPANY'S PRODUCTS. OMG - should I go to the Justice dept over this?
• How Apple locks competitors out of iMessage.
  • Thank you for doing that. The color of the bubble lets me know if the text message is staying within the Apple ecosystem and thus remaining encrypted. But their messages still come through. They are NOT locked out of only sending between systems. Hope a judge sees through this.
• How Apple blocks other financial firms from offering tap-to-pay services similar to Apple Pay on the iPhone.
  • I won't use other "financial firms" tap to pay services as I don't trust them. Apple is said to protect it's NFC architecture and I like it that way.
• Whether Apple favors its own apps and services over those provided by third-party developers.
  • There could be some truth to this. Lets see what happens.
• How Apple has blocked cloud gaming apps from the App Store.
  • Have they? Let's see what happens.
• How Apple restricts the iPhone's location services from devices that compete with AirTag.
  • Huh? The other devices have their own apps. What's the problem?
• How App Tracking Transparency impacted the collection of advertising data.
  • Whoop tee doo. So software vendors have to allow advertisers to snoop on users of their systems?
• In-app purchase fees collected by Apple.
  • So what. Everything has fees. There's a cost to provide infrastructure and IT's NOT CHEAP. OMG - really? AND there's value to what Apple provides.

PLEASE don't let us end up in a world of crap like what you see in the other options out there. Apple did all of us a HUGE favor for the mobile device industry. Many of you may not be aware of the hold cell providers had on OS's, apps, basic functionality of the handsets of the time. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Oh god. Imagine a world where the iPhone wasn't launched and Verizon/AT&T retained the final approval of the software stack. [shudder]

 

[lartola]

And who else uses those apps? Not iPhone users!

🙄

Yes, iphone users do use those apps. Iphone users living outside the US, that is. American iphone users are the only backwards ones who don’t want to use those 3rd party apps and still use SMS to communicate with people outside the Apple ecosystem.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

Not true. That does not apply to smartwatches. Every single other smartwatch in the market (samsung, fitbit, garmin, google pixel, etc) works with any phone you may have, even with an iphone, just so long as you download the respective app to pair your phone with it. Only the apple watch is restricted to exclusively work with an iphone. What other reason could there be for that besides apple wanting to force more iphone sales, i.e. money?

Think you missed the point. The Apple watch works better with iPhone. And who cares, really, about the "limitation" of the Apple Watch? If any argument could be made it would be Apple limiting their own sales.There are no laws anywhere that say you must make your product work with everything.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

This is a false equivalence. The reason Apple is under scrutiny is because as one of only 2 significant OS providers they have significant position of power in the smartphone industry, and the market for smartphone accessories, apps, and services is large and viewed as particularly important. Both the potential for anticompetitive practice and the potential impact of such practice is large. I doubt your couch manufacturer (or any individual couch manufacturer) is as dominant in the couch industry and I doubt the market for couch accessories is as important to the economy.

Anyone can go out there and do their own operating system. No one is limiting that. Consider iOS didn't exist before Apple. What happened to the Windows PDA OS? iOS is only important because it works. Why does it work? Tight alliance between OS and HW. Security is better than way too. One of the reasons I'm in the Apple ecosystem. Everything going on now threatens that.

 

[1129846]

Anyone can go out there and do their own operating system. No one is limiting that. Consider iOS didn't exist before Apple. What happened to the Windows PDA OS? iOS is only important because it works. Why does it work? Tight alliance between OS and HW. Security is better than way too. One of the reasons I'm in the Apple ecosystem. Everything going on now threatens that.

That is pretty far from the truth. The base of the Apple's OS's is one of the most common and oldest OS out there.

The base is Unix. Under the hood iOS, MacOS and Linux are all the same basic OS. They are all Unix based OS. The security is in the fundamentals of Unix. The security holes founds tend to be the same as the open source of Unix.

So no it is not the integration that makes it more secure but the fundamentals of the core of the OS. If you want to steal and hack the good stuff hack Linux and Unix based system as they run most of the big things on the internet.

 

[lartola]

Think you missed the point. The Apple watch works better with iPhone. And who cares, really, about the "limitation" of the Apple Watch? If any argument could be made it would be Apple limiting their own sales.There are no laws anywhere that say you must make your product work with everything.

correction: the apple watch ONLY WORKS WITH IPHONE. We can’t say it works better because we can’t compare since it doesn’t at all work with any other phone. And by doing that they trigger additional iphone sales because anyone who wants to buy an apple watch must also buy an iphone if they don’t already have one. So there can be no doubt that Apple did it only for the money.

 

[danwells]

Does Apple Watch have much of a potential market among Android users (ignoring the VERY small number of people who might own a smartwatch but not a phone)? I'd say not really, and I'd also not accuse Google of antitrust violations for making the Pixel watch hard to use with an iPhone (Google has plenty of OTHER antitrust violations, but the Pixel Watch isn't one of them). Fitness watches like Garmin (with a few smartwatch features) can go either way, but the true smartwatches? They're really phone accessories - you buy the one that matches your phone. Even WITHIN Android, Galaxy phone owners are probably going to buy a Galaxy watch, and Pixel phone owners are likely to match it with a Pixel watch.

There are some real issues here (maybe AirTags, maybe NFC, maybe iMessage), but the majority of it is the ad-tech industry howling at Apple having figured out how to lock out their snooping. A huge percentage of App Store complaining is either Meta themselves or is funded/encouraged by Meta. Meta pays VERY LITTLE IN APP STORE FEES. Sure, they have a few in-app purchases (which they might pay some fees on), but the VAST majority of their revenue is from targeted advertising. They are not complaining because the fees are a burden, but because Apple managed to partially lock out their data source.

If you WANT Mark Zuckerberg tracking you all over the Internet, it's easy enough to turn the tracking back on - but just about nobody does. VERY few consumers do, because essentially nobody likes targeted ads. For all that the ad-tech industry says "we're bringing you better ads", most end users are saying "you're bringing us too many ads, and they're creepy". Zuck HATES the rule that says "in order to get into the App Store, you can't circumvent user privacy choices, and your app can't stop working if a user makes certain privacy settings". He needs the App Store, so he isn't willing to do what Epic did and lose access (it would actually be less dire for Facebook/Meta, because they could direct users to the mobile web).

Nobody HAS to use an iPhone, much less any other Apple device. In the US, one of the most iPhone-heavy markets around, iPhone market share is just under 60%. 40% of users are on Android. The big issue with the Microsoft case in the 90s was that Windows had a 95% market share (and it was actually WORSE than that, because Macs were so heavily concentrated in education - outside of schools and universities, Windows may have had as much as a 98%-99% share (guessing)). If you didn't like something Microsoft was doing, tough luck. If you want to sideload apps, go get an Android phone. Apple hasn't changed their policy since the App Store first came out, so I can't imagine there's anyone left who both knows what "sideloading" is AND doesn't know it's not supported on iPhones.

If Apple is forced to allow sideloading, there will be a bunch of big apps that leave the App Store and become sideload-only. Some of them will be paid apps trying to avoid Apple's commissions. Others (probably including the really big ones), though, will be FREE apps from companies that don't like Apple's privacy policies. Is it REALLY consumer-friendly to let Meta take Facebook and Instagram sideload-only, when Meta will promptly say "it only works if you turn all the tracking on"? Right now, App Store rules keep them from doing that...

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

correction: the apple watch ONLY WORKS WITH IPHONE. We can’t say it works better because we can’t compare since it doesn’t at all work with any other phone. And by doing that they trigger additional iphone sales because anyone who wants to buy an apple watch must also buy an iphone if they don’t already have one. So there can be no doubt that Apple did it only for the money.

That's not technically true, even it it's mostly sort of true. You can pair a cellular Apple watch with an Android device. The process requires access to an iPhone, and swapping the sim card back and forth. I've never tried it, and I'm sure it's complete dog mess compared to the full Apple experience... but you apparently can use iMessage, fitness/health, make/receive phone calls, and some of the other basic functions. The thing is, that's really not too far off from the general Android smartwatch experience.

Also interesting: you can't use a Samsung Galaxy watch on iPhone, for some reason. It's baffling that Samsung isn't facing Antitrust action over that. 🤔🙃😉

 

[ozaz]

Also interesting: you can't use a Samsung Galaxy watch on iPhone, for some reason. It's baffling that Samsung isn't facing Antitrust action over that. 🤔🙃😉

The issue noted in the article is not lack of compatibility between Apple Watch and Android. I doubt regulators have any interest in forcing Apple to provide Android support for the Apple Watch (or for any other Apple product for that matter). Apple should be able to choose what platforms it makes its own products available on.

The issue is that Apple apparently does not allow 3rd party smartwatches to interact with iPhones in the same way as Apple Watch (presumably Apple watch gets access to privileged iPhone/iOS resources not made available to other smartwatches). Apple leveraging its power as the iPhone platform maker to give one of its other products advantages over competing products on the platform could potentially be seen as anti-competitive and that's what's being looked at.

Earlier Samsung Galaxy watches do work with iPhone, but Samsung dropped support for the most recent model or models. I wouldn't be surprised if part of their motivation was to draw attention to the issue.

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

I wouldn't be surprised if part of their motivation was to draw attention to the issue.

Or more likely, it wasn't worth the resources for the eleven people who wanted to do this.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Well, thank you for sharing the same article that I linked to earlier. Apologies for being a bit flippant, but did you actually read beyond what you thought was the 'gotcha?'

Wired’s entire article supports this view that Apple were working from a position of weakness. The strong side of a negotiation never offers exclusivity, which is essentially future potential profits for years, in a negotiation. Even considering the amount of money Cingular had to put into developing the carrier side of Visual Voicemail, that was only a drop in the bucket to the money Apple was foregoing in order to get their device into customer’s hands.

In the end, it mainly came down to the fact that the CEO felt it was a big gamble, but simply had faith in Steve Jobs (especially considering that they decided to work together when no hardware had even been developed). Steve told him what he could do, and he believed him, and the rest is history.

I no longer believe what they say about Verizon, though, as other articles point out releasing a CDMA phone first would never have been Apple’s goal (as that would mean a worldwide expansion would require a separate phone that works on GSM networks). And Verizon’s first understanding that the GSM hardware existed was AFTER Apple had been working with AT&T for a year, they can’t say no to something that wasn’t even being offered to them. So, from Apple’s side, this was really a moon shot, there was no other carrier in the US they could work with, realistically, if it wasn’t Cingular/AT&T. They were VERY fortunate that AT&T’s CEO had an admiration for Steve Jobs. Then again, it could be that the ONLY reason why Steve Jobs thought it was possible to even try, was because of this relationship.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The smartphone market in the late 00s was minuscule in comparison and even those that technically had smartphones (eg Nokia Symbian phones) often did not install any apps or services.

But, that’s still saying “If you ignore the folks that were installing apps and services on their phone, there weren’t anyone installing apps and services on their phone.” For those that WERE installing apps, they were locked into PalmOS, or WindowsCE/Windows Mobile/PocketPC, Symbian etc. Their next phone depended heavily on what phone they were currently using as they’d have to re-purchase applications. Or, if they were communicating with contacts via BBM, their next device would have to be a Blackberry device. If the iPhone had not come along, the market would have continued to grow at the same rate year over year.

Now, what did Apple do? First, they made a very cool device that people with disposable income would want to own, even without the capability to buy apps for it. Additionally, as part of their deal with their first carrier, they would take control of the application acquisition and delivery FROM the carrier. To no one’s surprise, making it easier to buy applications (and simpler for developers to produce applications) meant more applications were bought. It produced the exact same network effects as before, just on a larger scale. Folks looked at BBM and had to decide to leave that network behind. They looked at the apps they spent significant amounts of money on and put it behind them to have the iPhone. It shows that if a company makes a desirable enough product, folks may be willing to migrate to it, regardless of the network effects. Many think that there’s no more desirable product than the iPhone and that there never will be a more desirable product than the iPhone. I just disagree.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

It’s always fun to look at what folks thought about the iPhone before it was released.
“It's laughable to discuss whether Apple has a monopoly in the cellphone market. Apple hardly even has a presense in the cellphone market. All they have is one insignificant product (the Rokker (sp?)) and one product announcement. It's amazing to me how many people assume Apple will be a big success in cellphones, just because they hit the jackpot once with the iPod. Who's to say the iPhone won't be more like the Netwon?”

“Long story short, Apple has yet to sell a single cell phone. Frankly, I'm all with you on the Newton analogy. Once Apple dries up the supply of people who will buy anything with an Apple logo, I don't think the iPhone is going to sell very well at all.”

I do think that they have somewhat of a point, though, because Apple, by this time, had been delivering products that a small but significant portion of the public liked to buy. It’s probably not a stretch that there were a number of folks that bought the iPhone not really understanding the full impact of what it could do, but just because it was an Apple product. That would imply that companies like Humane and the maker of the Rabbit R1 and others could have a bright future if they have a solid number of years providing desirable products their fans enjoy.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Hard to be competitive when you have to pay a 30% cut to your competitor, don’t you think?

They pay 30% to Tidal, Deezer and Pandora? WOW, so that’s why they can’t turn a profit.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

That is pretty far from the truth. The base of the Apple's OS's is one of the most common and oldest OS out there.

The base is Unix. Under the hood iOS, MacOS and Linux are all the same basic OS. They are all Unix based OS. The security is in the fundamentals of Unix. The security holes founds tend to be the same as the open source of Unix.

So no it is not the integration that makes it more secure but the fundamentals of the core of the OS. If you want to steal and hack the good stuff hack Linux and Unix based system as they run most of the big things on the internet.

Yes it is. I'm aware of the foundation of MacOS and iOS being a version of Unix. I've been in IT for decades and grew up in an IT family. Supporting and using Apple OS's is much easier than anything else out there. Compare to Windows for instance. They are an OS that has to support multitudes of hardware interacting with each other. Drivers are constant issues as is firmware. There are constant conflicts between what one vendor uses/wants and others. Apple on the other hand, controls what hardware it needs to support which helps to make the system stable and less prone to issues.

Before converting to the Apple ecosystem in my personal life, I'd work during the day/night supporting systems with consistent issues. Come home, have to fight my own personal issues. I'd rather just use the system for my tasks without having to constantly, or at in-opportune times, have to troubleshoot issues. Don't get me wrong, I have had issues with Apple, but they are far and few between.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

correction: the apple watch ONLY WORKS WITH IPHONE. We can’t say it works better because we can’t compare since it doesn’t at all work with any other phone. And by doing that they trigger additional iphone sales because anyone who wants to buy an apple watch must also buy an iphone if they don’t already have one. So there can be no doubt that Apple did it only for the money.

There are plenty of other watches out there. In many cases, people prefer the other watches. You would have a more valid point if the only smart watch out there was Apple.

Though there have been problems between the watch and phone, I'll guarantee the experience is much better because Apple doesn't have to support using the watch with other OS's.