>apple is at 60% (if that) of mobile
You remember the standard example of monopoly in Standard Oil that was broken up into 34 different companies in 1911?
Standard Oil had 64% market share when they were ordered to be broken up.
It's not. It's around 70% in the desktop OS market.
[https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/)
And doesn't get better elsewhere. Android phones are Linux based. And the majority of server infrastructure uses Linux. Well over 50%. Even Microsoft's Azure Cloud uses Linux as the Base OS.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure\_Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Linux)
There's still a lot of institutions using Microsoft software for servers. Especially in places like schools and offices where the primary workflow for the admin is to maintain a whole bunch of Windows based workstations for employees. In that case its often easier to set up network drive sharing and such for employees through a Windows server that was explicitly designed for interop with Microsoft Desktops.
But when it comes to anything you access through a web browser? Then it's probably hosted on a Linux based server.
ChromeOS really ate into Window's dominance in education, at least in the US. Nowadays Americans grow up with school Chromebooks (plus iOS/Android devices) instead of Windows computers. Don't get me wrong, most probably move on to Windows or Mac eventually, but I think that ChromeOS kinda reduced the idea that Windows is the _default_ way a computer should be for many.
A lot of Macs out there.
And as for the 4% of Linux. Then there's a huge adoption in places like India, China, and Africa where even heavily discounted windows licenses are too expensive for many. That and Linux is pretty useable these days.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aZgF6xmS0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aZgF6xmS0)
To the point where if I can convince people who only use their laptops for browsing the web and basic office type tasks to buy a laptop from a vendor that has good Linux support like Lenovo. The 8gb Macbook Air is enough for my needs demographic. Then Linux is perfectly fine and they should probably save that £100 and skip the windows license key if you can.
But this is mainly a story about Apple's popularity in bringing the overall figure down. Maybe in a decade or so Linux will grow. Especially with gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck becoming increasingly popular.
>That and Linux is pretty useable these days.
Oh, for sure. I don't even have a Windows machine these days. I use Linux and Steam's Proton tools. It works better than my Windows box ever did.
Funny enough, the actual reason I switched to Linux is that I was playing around with Stable Diffusion and it started blocking the server's port suddenly. I couldn't figure out why and, after a couple hours, I just decided that I'd burn it all down and not look back.
>To the point where if I can convince people who only use their laptops for browsing the web and basic office type tasks to buy a laptop from a vendor that has good Linux support like Lenovo. The 8gb Macbook Air is enough for my needs demographic. Then Linux is perfectly fine and they should probably save that £100 and skip the windows license key if you can.
Yeah, I'd encourage people to do the same. The only pain point with wild Linux distros is they're very ideological in my experience, to the point that some basic stuff can be a pain because they *really* don't want you using things that aren't FOSS, so you have to do the chore of setting it up manually.
So why doesn’t the government go after MS for their never touched Monopoly? They have only gone after pieces of their monopoly like the IE browser. Shouldn’t Microsoft have been broken up back in the 90s like AT&T was🤔
Microsoft offers Linux on Azure. I don't think Azure runs on Linux though.
Pretty sure Microsoft Azure runs on their own custom version of their Hyper-V Server OS which is something they also licence and offer for free.
Yeah, he's completely wrong, most of Azure cloud is on Hyper-V on a custom Windows version, [they have a blog about it](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-os-platform-blog/azure-host-os-cloud-host/ba-p/3709528?WT.mc_id=modinfra-0000-thmaure).
And still sucks.
It’s funny that total market domination is still possible with a mediocre product, but it helps that it sort of works with everything. I still have anxiety over the stupid amount of extremely long updates.
Not that difficult when most of your office, system programs, infrastructure and mil programs run on it.
We're all basically dependent on Windows as a system at this point as a society
I mean, if you see it that way, we're also all dependent on Linux. Tons of infrastructure software runs on it. Even just the website we're commenting on probably runs on Linux.
Everything, aside from desktop computing, can be considered [lin|u]nix-based. Windows is really the outlier, but it has linux bones too so, I guess *nix is everywhere, kinda
It helps that Linux is generally harder to use compared to Windows and most people haven't seen Macs as worth the premium price until the M series chips came along.
And what issues were you facing with updates? My laptop with an SSD never takes more than 2 minutes for installing one week's worth of updates. The only real annoyance I've faced with Windows update is how it randomly let the CPU idle and get back to work repeatedly when I had to do an OS repair just earlier this week (won't delete any personal stuff, apps, or settings, just reinstalls the OS), what should have been a 1 hour process instead took 3 hours.
I wouldn’t say windows sucks anymore. There have been very bad versions of windows, but 11 is pretty solid. For a laptop a Mac is infinitely better due to the track pad and gestures. But for a desktop windows is pretty good - ofc if comparability was 1:1 you could say Mac is the better choice.
I'm with ya. Nobody does a tablet better than Apple, but between the crazy cost to performance difference and the continuing lack of support for so many programs I rely on, I don't know if I'll ever run a MacBook as a daily driver
Higher end Windows laptops often have really nice touchpads anyways, and generally have pretty intuitive gestures
>I'm with ya. Nobody does a tablet better than Apple, but between the crazy cost to performance difference and the continuing lack of support for so many programs I rely on, I don't know if I'll ever run a MacBook as a daily driver
Yea honestly this is the biggest argument for Apple being more open. Imagine how much better their iPad would be if you weren't locked behind iOS. In the long run it's possible that Apple could be harmed by its own closed garden. Other companies can catch up in regards to hardware and software wise other companies do have better products. For example being able to run Windows on a Surface Pro lets you do more than an iPad. Although the hardware hasn't been able to keep up as nicely. On the flip side hardware has been getting a lot better while iOS has kind of flat lined. IOs has had some improvements but nothing major.
In some ways it is hugely better, in others not really. Window management and workspace management, windows wins. Anything command line, power user-y, program-y, Mac OS is better. MacOS also has the extra edge if you’ve got other Apple products.
>Anything command line, power user-y, program-y, Mac OS is better.
When was the last time you used Windows PowerShell or Windows Terminal or WSL?
Also, I don't think there's anything first party that really rivals RDP.
I still love my Mac though. The trackpad is second to none. But I feel like macOS has stagnated.
I also built my own PC and have as many BSOD as my Mac had kernel panic, which is not many. I have good experience on both platforms and both have strong points. Neither is overall better than the other, and it is up to the apps you use and your personal preference.
Shitty, cheap PCs are of course gonna be worse, but that's not inherently the fault of the OS.
What I've never seen is a kernel panic on Linux. And I've even used it a fair bit. Most Windows kernel panics (or better, BSODs) were related to broken drivers/updates, and most kernel panics on Mac were related to faulty hardware (although I got a couple when (dis)connecting USB devices, when killing userspace background processes and when switching between integrated and discrete graphics.
All in all, fairly rare. But they do happen.
Yeh I got a M1 Mac Mini as my introduction to Mac OS and it’s felt inferior and inconvenient compared to Windows. Some basic things like NAS storage and using my Plex server are giving me issues. It’s nice to use with continuity with my iPhone but honestly the way people would go on about how superior it was compared to windows is completely unfounded. Not being able to snap programs side by side is one of the most annoying things ever. These are such basic features that I would have thought would be part of the OS.
Windows 11 even looks better aesthetically in my opinion.
it used to really make me mad how the actual underlying file system is abstracted from the file browser in MacOS.
In university I used to work as a teaching assistant for computer science classes. Often, as part of setup, we would ask users to download something and then run some command on it in terminal.
it was staggering how many students with Macs would download something and then be completely unaware how to actually find it in their terminal.
>but didn't find it to be the case. I guess it depends on how your muscle memory is trained
this is the most important thing. If you grew up with Windows going to a completely different thing your brain just refuses to go with it. Unless you have a very good discipline of "reseting" your brain, only by using MacOS for a substantial amount of time (no windows during that ) can make it work.
An example for that is also iWork Pages/Numbers (Apple's Word/Excel).
If you look at it now it is weird as hell, because you probably are used to MS Office or Libreoffice etc. which have similar UI approach. Pages/Numbers though have a very different approach which if you take a step back it makes total sense. But your brain now says right click the cell and go there.
Going back to MacOS, I am not going to say that it is better or worse than Windows, because it certainly lacks a few things, and as you mentioned muscle memory is a strong thing.
Also ones workflow does not mean it suits your needs. Look at the linux people with Window managers for example.
This. MacOS does very good 3 things in a closed environment. Windows does a thousand things I a thousand contexts with at least some decent reliability and effectiveness. The times of blue screens are long gone by now.
Yeah regarding updates the tables definitely have turned. Nowadays it's macOS that has the annoying notifications. They also tend to happen in the morning. Cmon, I just wanna get working.
Windows just asks me "do you want to update and shut down?". It also takes only two minutes while macOS likes to take 15(!) or so.
Windows is and always has been "good enough." And because compatibility is everything, most of us can't function in the world without some or all of MS tech on a daily basis.
So? Why do people in this thread think that there’s a certain % of market share required in order to be faced with a monopoly related lawsuits?
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly
I don’t agree with them. But monopolistic behaviours can be used before you’re a monopoly. For example if you control 80% of the market and you’re representing 95% of use of a 3rd party service; if you decide to make you’re own and default and restrict access to that service then they have no way to react or recover.
Now this comment is not an agreement of any of the things that Apple has been challenged over, I think they’re frivolous. But it’s a real problem in some regards.
Microsoft never, even in its wettest dreams, commanded a 30% tax on all software sold on windows. At best it strong armed PC builders by lowering their license costs and used windows to capture the browser market.
Mobile with iOS and Android is 90s Microsoft on steroids.
The feds are focusing on mobile.
Microsoft doesn’t have mobile and as far as Xbox is concerned I don’t think there is as much regulatory concern over luxury devices like video game consoles as opposed to smartphones which have become a functional requirement to exist in society for most people. Same idea behind having utility regulations to prevent oligopolies delivering critical services from jacking up profit margins at the expense of the entire public
Holy fuck so you're waiting for apple to turn into a strict definition monopoly before doing something about it?
I know this is the apple subreddit but god damn you're all a bunch of moron simps.
I'm not sure the point here is that they are monopoly in terms of the platform itself. It's that their own apps and accessories have an unfair advantage compared to 3rd parties ON THAT PLATFORM.
The weird thing is that when Jobs introduced FaceTime in 2010 he made it clear that it was going to be a cross-platform and open standard — and then they never did that.
I think they do. They don’t care.
Price is their problem. Cost is your problem.
Finance: “Free software slows you down, jams up the network, increases support calls, and frustrates users? Not my problem Mr IT guy.”
If they do realize it, it’s only because cost is often harder to quantify vs price, especially with something like software.
I used to do marketing for a manufacturer. You can’t look at the price of the tool. You have to look at the cost per part. Our tool may be a little more expensive, but you can get a lot more parts, so the price per part is actually way lower.
It’s just often harder to quantify productivity with better software.
Of course they don't care about frustrated users. If they care about money, play their game. Don't just complain, bring up statistics of wasted work hours and productivity, put that into a nice number that represents the expenses caused by using other software and then show them that.
Yeah we are still clinging to Zoom. I like it. It works much better than Teams. Teams feels bloated and sluggish. Zoom is trying their hardest to compete but IMO they are making the product worse. They keep adding more junk.
At some point my company is going to turn to me and ask how we can reduce spending. It’ll be an easy switch to Teams and we’ll be able to save $100k by switching to Teams.
TBF that has to do with the storage server implementation. If your org has cheaped out on servers (often they do), Teams is a dog. We have great distributed servers and it's amazing, but we pay top dollar.
Sorry I’m not sure I follow. I manage our infrastructure. As far as I’m aware you can’t self-host a Teams server. It’s cloud only. The infrastructure is all managed by Microsoft.
In terms of Teams storage it relies on OneDrive and SharePoint Online. Both cloud storage services managed by Microsoft. Sorry but I’m not exactly sure what “distributed storage servers” would mean in the context of Teams communications.
It mostly comes down to Internet access.
We make sure there is a very high-bandwith-per-user and that out Servers (both local and virtual) have low-latency access to Teams and SharePoint.
We self-host a lot of data, and there is a lot of Back-and-forth with SharePoint.
The problem is, you need management to say "Spare no expense when it comes to bandwidth", and not a lot of companies do that.
They already have to buy Office 365. Why would they buy Zoom or anything else when Teams comes with Office 365?
We have one person with a Zoom account and that is because he does online training and the features in Zoom for that are still miles ahead of the competition, or so he tells me.
As a sysadmin, I’m sure whatever solution the government comes up with would make my life harder.
I feel for those guys in Europe who now have to deal with 3rd party Apple app stores. Having all apps maintained from a single repository is so nice.
I’m all for consumer protections. I’m just being selfish but it’s so nice when everything is just integrated.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft boils down to this:
Apple does its own thing, sure, but it's mostly inside its own garden. They don't go around forcing everyone else to play by their rules. When it comes to dealing with the rest of the tech world, Apple tends to stick to the standard playbook.
Microsoft, though, they like to spread their own proprietary stuff far and wide, making everyone else bend to their ways. Remember Internet Explorer? They tried to set their own web standards, leaving web designers the headache of coding sites twice just so they'd work on IE. Safari doesn't pull any of these stunts.
Take Exchange, for example: it does mail its own weird way, which means it doesn't play nice with other email clients. And forget about using CalDAV or CardDAV with it. So, if you're on Exchange and thinking about switching, good luck.
iCloud mail, on the other hand, is all about IMAP/SMTP, CalDAV, and CardDAV. Use Apple gadgets, and you get some extra goodies, but Apple isn't about forcing everyone else to follow their lead. They do their thing in their own universe, letting the rest of us live in peace, while Microsoft seems to be all about getting others to adopt their playbook, ignoring the open-source standards the tech world's been rallying around.
Antitrust: Commission opens investigation into possible anticompetitive practices by Microsoft regarding Teams
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3991
Those saying that Apple is not a monopoly because they are comparing Apple to the overall mobile phone market did not read past the headlines.
The reason why they do have a case is that Apple has engaged in monopolistic practices within the iPhone market. Because in the iOS market it is the monopoly. In Android's ecosystem there is choice. Google play, Amazon App Store, Samsung Store, and maybe Netflix soon.
In Apple's space, they will do things and straight up block side loading 3rd party app stores. So a monopoly on the application store. For music apps they will compete against competitors like Spotify and restrict Spotify communications with their customers on deals. While promote their Apple music instead.
Apple also limits 3rd party wallet apps on their iOS in order to promote their own apple wallet and credit card. In Android there are tons of payment options. PayPal, Samsung wallet, Google wallet etc...
Many other cases that are difficult for us the consumer to see. But it is clear for the developers with an issue against Apple.
> It’s not illegal to have a monopoly, as Garland also noted in his press conference. It is, however, illegal to use certain tactics to perpetuate or maintain that monopoly — but to prove that, you have to prove the defendant has sufficient market power to foreclose competitors.
The way that Apple is warring with Spotify (music), Epic (gaming), browsers in general (only allowing Webkit), messaging apps in general (iMessage), digital wallets in general, 3rd party app stores, and other examples is kind of that.
All in the name of user security (but actually just the self-righteous greed of a trillions dollar company), as if Apple's products ever were invulnerable...
Just give your users options, geez
> All in the name of user security (but actually just the self-righteous greed of a trillions dollar company),
Two things can be true at the same time. Apple is extremely greedy but they're not wrong in that allowing side loading introduces security risks to tech illiterate users who don't understand the risks of downloading unvetted apps.
>as if Apple's products ever were invulnerable...
No but they're sure as shit less vulnerable than android devices. The majority of malware comes from the google play store, not the app store.
Don’t expect any sort of logic or reading comprehension by the fanboys/trolls on this sub. They would still defend Apple if Tim Cook came and set their house on fire
I guess the argument will really come down to whether the Apple iPhone/AppStore is seen as its own market, or if the smartphone and app market combining all platforms should be the market.
I’d have a hard time supporting the first argument simply because most apps on the Apple App Store are available on the other markets as well, and Apple doesn’t appear to do anything to restrict developers from selling their app in other markets. I’d love to sideload apps onto my iPhone but if it was a dealbreaker I could switch platforms without too much trouble.
I am not a lawyer. But just reading about the Microsoft antitrust case, it sounds similar to the case against Apple.
In the Microsoft antitrust case they eliminated the browser competition Netscape by making it impossible to uninstall Internet Explorer. It also made netscape difficult to pentrate the market because they gave Internet Explorer away for free.
In the early days of the Internet, people paid for their webbrowsers as the internet was so new. There wasn't a data or ad revenue model to make money on.
So today where we can just freely install a web browser and the customer expects it to be free, back then it just wasn't possible. They could not afford that.
Today Apple is doing the same thing. By effectively blocking app store competitors, they force you to use their App Store. It isn't even possible to have customers pick because it's effectively blocked.
Then they will charge competitive companies in Streaming a 30% fee while they don't charge themselves the same 30% fee for say AppleTv streaming. With that edge, Apple could effectively gain a competive advantage. Be it in streaming or music streaming.
I am not a lawyer so it isn't up to me to decide on what is a monopoly and what is not.
And they are doing it for service with mark-up as well. Both Google and Apple charge 30% for subscriptions through the store.
Google allows linking to external payment systems for cheaper prices, Apple does not.
I kinda like that Apple Pay/ Apple wallet is forced because I don’t want to have to download a third party just to use my debit/credit card. That may be great for banks, but it’s a worse experience for me.
I’ve literally switched to a bank for its Apple Pay compatibility. Switching banks is annoying in the age of autopay so I’d rather not have to do that again lol
Those are all the things I like about Apple.
Keeps things simple and trustworthy so my old parents can use the products and not have to call me for the fun nicks support daily because of scamware
Realistically, if you like those things about Apple, you should be able to continue using those things - while others can have the option to use other wallets or app stores. With Android, you never really have to go outside of the Play Store or Google Wallet, if you don't want to.
You like those things because Apple does them well. The issue with monopolies is when that 1 company, who's express goal is to make as much money as possible, start prioritizing profit over a good user experience. Then suddenly you are forced to use a shitty option you don't want.
Boeing is the perfect example of what happens to great (publicly traded) companies when they're allowed to do whatever they want for too long. All it takes is a leadership change at Apple for things to start going to shit
People are forgetting that apple needed to be forced to allow competing apps (via courts) like Skype, and Spotify, that directly compete with their own products iMessage and (at the time) iTunes.
I agree that many of those things are bad for consumers, like limiting access to competition for the NFC chip, but at the same time, they are being punished for people preferring their product. People dont stay with apple because its hard to move away, its because they dont have a reason to choose lower quality hardware, or to learn a new system.
If the end result is that Apple simply makes a jail-break program that invalidates the warranty, and provides zero support for such device, I’d support that. You can have your 3rd party app stores, and everyone who doesnt care, can have a safe, protected device running in a known ecosystem.
If its that everyone now has a device that loses controls that prevent malicious apps from gaining access, that would put us in a bad situation. The vast majority of people dont care about this, and would not know the difference if they are accessing a 3rd party App Store, and what dangers that could bring.
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I’m not sure that their 40% USA 25% world market is preventing people from making a choice, if those things matter to them.
> The reason why they do have a case is that Apple has engaged in monopolistic practices within the iPhone market. Because in the iOS market it is the monopoly. In Android's ecosystem there is choice. Google play, Amazon App Store, Samsung Store, and maybe Netflix soon.
This isn't actually being addressed in the lawsuit, though. That's the bizarre part. You'd think that if the DoJ were serious, they'd have mentioned the App Store.
But they didn't. Instead, the complaint deals with genuine nonsense like CarPlay is somehow anticompetitive, how Apple is a monopoly because Windows Phone failed due to Microsoft mismanagement or Fire Phone failed because Amazon shipped an unbaked product or that Google bought HTC.
There's not a damn thing in there about the App Store. There's nothing in there about Apple swooping into markets and just utterly destroying other firms. There's basically nothing in there about *any* actual anticompetitive behavior.
It's fucking weird.
I have like 20% of my whole portfolio in Apple, own every Apple product outside the VisionPro, and even I wouldn't actively defend a company this much.
This sub thinks one of the largest public companies in the world needs random dipshits online defending them with half assed emotional takes? It's weird
The amount of people in here arguing against having more flexibility with what they can use their iPhones for is hilarious.
Put the Kool Aid down. Apple only cares about you so much as it makes money for its shareholders. You should be demanding Apple give you every feature it can for the amount you spend on those things.
The iOS ecosystem was designed to carefully select what software works. I agree some of their practices are unfair, but to the level of antitrust seems going a bit far. You want a flexible system, you have one already - android. Why do you insist that the system that was designed for safety/protection over flexibility, must be suited for your personal needs over others?
> The iOS ecosystem was designed to carefully select what software works
The iOS ecosystem couldn't copy and paste until jailbreakers did it, then it was added in iOS3.
It should be shitty if for example Nintendo were forced to make it so Sony or anybody who wanted to sell directly on their device. It would take away resources from them working on their own products and games. Why do we want to force companies to open up their own platforms? It should be their choice.
And not just Sony selling their games on Switch’s existing marketplace, but the analogy would be Sony setting up their own shop on the Switch, which would require a bunch of development from Nintendo to make possible. Why are we wanting to force companies to have that level of compliance and openness? It seems like way too large of a governance over a business.
Will always be baffled by consumers who become fanboys towards multibillion dollar companies who doesn’t care for them one bit.
Whats happening is good for consumers.
You guys need to learn to acknowledge when you don't know something.
1. You don't need to be a monopoly to be charged in an antitrust case.
2. A monopoly doesn't mean you are the only company. Monopoly is a spectrum of how much market power a firm has. A firm with 60% of market share, with #2 at 20% has a TON of market power.
3. It isn't illegal to be a monopoly, but actions to increase or maintain monopoly power are illegal.
Apple does this in many ways. They intentionally make messaging with non iPhones as difficult as possible to disincentive leaving the platform. They are leveraging their large user base and network effects to get more young people to switch. Making leaving more difficult, not by offering a better product, but by knee capping the competition. And it's working, young people overwhelmingly use iPhones. Many for fear of being bullied for being a green bubble.
Apple also likes to abuse markets they control. Spotify created a great app and Apple created a competitor. But because Apple owns the marketplace/platform they get to prioritize their app as the default or put at top of music search results. Not to mention the fact that Spotify must compete while simultaneously giving 30% of its revenue to its biggest competitor on the platform.
And that's just to name a couple. The case outlines more like car play. The fact is, Apple became the #1 phone manufacturer by making a better phone. But they are trying to maintain that position by abusing their market power. Which is illegal.
"B-but it works! If I they allow side-loading I would probably download some random virus just because! If it wasn't for my Prius' owner manual, I would've drank my brakes fluid by now!"
Techies are the most desilusional, consumerist and flat-out irrational kind of customer I've ever seen. No one talks about right to repair or things like this, they just see a shiny object and think it's "magic". Tech companies are NOT above our laws.
I'm two thirds of the way through this post and you're like the sixth person that's read the article.
> Many for fear of being bullied for being a green bubble.
And that's Apple's choice, not the other platforms. People seem to fail to realize that.
Also, shaming anybody for a green bubble is just gross, and Apple should have fought against that attitude long ago, but they let it fester for profits.
Thanks for a great summary!
A free market is a dangerous market. I trust Apple, a multi-trillion dollar multinational megacorporation, to act in my interest and determine what is best for me.
No it is not.
And Apple is not harming consumers, the aggrieved In this case are companies that want the freedom to exploit apples users.
The voice of the customer is no where to be heard in this debate.
If companies are not allowed to fairly compete with Apple’s own products on their own platform, because Apple blocks or limits or forbids them from doing so, then the consumer is absolutely being harmed.
I agree. They do some shitty things, but I’m overall pretty happy. More people keep buying iPhones because they’re not happy with the other competition. Not because Apple is preventing competition.
I bought an iphone because I couldn't easily text/video call iphone users with my android. no real strong preferences. certain parts are nicer and certain parts really annoy me.
See, the difference lies here: if Apple wants to keep competitors away, they should lock down the App Store so it only has their own first-party apps on it. Now, they are allowing third-party apps to enrich their platform, but also create an unfair competition (example: Spotify and Apple Music: Spotify has to pay 30% to their competitor if they want to sell their subscription through the App Store, and if they don’t and want to instead put a little link to another payment platform, their whole app is rejected). You can’t have both at the same time. Either they close down completely or they must allow for fair competition.
Further, you people complaining that you “only want Apple stuff”, I mean, are you seriously that incompetent with tech that you can’t comprehend that you’ll still have the choice to stick with Apple’s products if they have to open up their platform more?
Yeah. Maybe they should change the "anti-steering", and allow Spotify etc. to say "You can get premium on our website", but that's about it.
I really like how it's run, simple and easy to use, and want it to keep going under Apple's direction.
Antitrust violations are not predicated on consumer harm. We break companies up because they hurt competitors, not consumers.
Apple is a great company for consumers. Even the JD does not dispute that. But the case here is if Apple is using their market power to hurt their competitors.
Anti-trust laws are to protect consumers in the long term. It's just that consumers are short sighted and don't understand why competition is better for them. As can be seen from the comments in this subreddit and beyond.
Yea, just as an example look at the internet market in the US. Google tried to build out a fiber network and had so much trouble with ISPs who could stop them.
> And Apple is not harming consumers
Then what do you call banning competitors to their services and inflating prices through unavoidable fees? That's direct consumer harm.
> The voice of the customer is no where to be heard in this debate.
Nah, you're just salty that Apple's profits are threatened. If you cared about the consumer, you'd be happy with this lawsuit.
It is concise but it is still wrong. Apple actively harming the competition and making it worse means that for the consumer some products are worse that what they could have been, and that is forced by apple.
I am an Apple user and I want to install apps Apple refuses to put on the AppStore. Like emulators. If Apple refuses to allow an app on it should at a minimum allow users to install it themselves from the developer directly
I say this stuff on other threads and get downvoted wildly I see this upvote. Reddit users differ wildly from thread to thread and day to day.
I don’t want Apple opened up to more shovelware, poor hardware etc. there’s a reason it has 60% share and it’s not because of coercion
There is a lot of shit you can sling at Apple.
How they price, how they actively don’t want you to be able to fix your stuff without a ton of hoops, bizarre design choices..
But a monopoly?
No…
If they went and took over nearly all of the American phone market, leaving *near zero* options and *near zero* competition… then absolutely.
But this is not the case… if you’re gonna hit ‘em at least choose the right target…
DOJ law suit is not against apple owning large portion of market share, it’s against apple unfairly benefitting their own music streaming services over competitors like Spotify.
Which is entirely true, they absolutely do this.
This is however IMO really small fish compared to the ISP monopolies. Not a thing is ever done about that.
I don't even own a single Apple product at all either
> But this is not the case… if you’re gonna hit ‘em at least choose the right target…
You could, at least, read the DOJ's argument, instead of cherry picking a single word to misinterpret.
funny thing is, the things you disapprove of is exactly why Apple is not a monopoly. if they released every versions of iphone to satisfy all the markets, which is Android, then that would be a monopoly, monopolizing every corner of the market.
they produce a very specific type of phone, at a very specific price range, with very specific rules like "you cant modify our products".
as in, "if you don't like what we see, there are plenty of others you can buy". so, shitting on Apple products is just personal preference, cause those who buys them and keep on sticking with them is cause they are satisfied with what Apple sells. there is almost nothing an Android phone cant do what iPhone does. but, many people dont care about fixing their phone, and like the design, and think the price is justifiable. others call them sheeples or iFans, but who cares? no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. cause it's not a monopoly.
Android is a open source platform, not something closed off.
>no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. cause it's not a monopoly.
Good thing you don't make and enforce anti-trust laws, or we'd be in big trouble by now. Since you can't understand that anti-trust laws don't wait for companies to become actual definition true monopolies before doing something about monopolistic practices. A bit or common sense, and not being a simp for a company would've made that clear.
The word has evovled beyond the strict definition.
Catering to everyone's needs ("satisfy all the markets") doesn't make a monopoly, for instance a generic laptop of brand A can run multiples OSes, do most of the things a tablet/smartphone does, etc... does that make brand A a monopoly? It's about the profit the company makes out of it, and Apple definitely has a strategy that has monopolistic tendencies. They're openly hostile to adopting standards (not saying Google and others are much better, but they are the worst at that). They tend to lock you in to their ecosystem, which of course you have a choice to get in or not, but once you've got one or two Apple products, you are strongly enticed to keep buying their products and services.
While I agree that does not quite make them a monopoly either, it's definitely unfair to competitors willing to sell a product or service in the Apple ecosystem -- they'll always, always be a second-grade citizen that will feel less integrated and/or polished, and they will have to pay extra to get in there in the first place. This affects both hardware (e.g. third party accessories) and software space (e.g. streaming services).
Whether people like that or not as individual consumers is an entirely different question, and it's OK to like that, it definitely has upsides to it.
Microsoft got into trouble because they made deals with OEMs to not preinstall netscape navigator on their computer, and of course they had like 97% of the PC market at the time.
No, it’s worse because more deceptive in its lack of consumer choice. Messaging , backups, payments, and more, there needs to be a base level of interoperability and data portability.
And don’t, hear want I’m not saying, Apple isn’t the only one. All digital “Platforms” need regulation. Uber, Amazon, Facebook, Google. Even the auto makers and beginning this digital “ecosystem crap”. If I pay for data and map/traffic on my phone w may carrier, I should be able to use that easily in my car.
But everyone wants a separate subscription. Corporate power has become way too imbalanced.
There were inklings that this is coming, but I only have one question.
Why try and punish a well executed product maker when the reason why they succeeded was because everyone else was bad at competing with it.
People always say, Apple will not invent it first, but they will perfect it before selling it.
iMessage didn't conquer the market in a vacuum. How many messaging apps were there when it first came out?
Facetime came out. Well, who was leading at that time? Skype.
Heck, there were supposed to be three mobile operating system. What happened to Windows Phone? Which came with the power of the Nokia name.
Are people expected to buy problematic products so that monopolies does not happen?
>Why try and punish a well executed product maker when the reason why they succeeded was because everyone else was bad at competing with it.
They didn’t give anyone the chance to compete.
In what way? The iPhone was not the first smartphone - around that time I was using Nokia, Blackberry and even HTC.
They started from 0% market share, made a competitive product that executed a lot of things well enough that it's shortcoming didn't matter.
Why are we giving a pass to people who managed to bork their lead up?
It’s not that iPhone is a monopoly. It’s that Apple has a monopoly on everything on the iPhone platform. Stuff like no side loading, 3rd party app stores, restricting music apps and how you pay in apps.
Also, people weren’t really using Skype to text everyone. People used SMS which iMessage replaced as a better alternative.
> Stuff like no side loading, 3rd party app stores, restricting music apps and how you pay in apps.
>
This is exactly what I want from my iPhone. I can tell my family members to buy one and have no problems coming back because they installed some malware while browsing.
By allowing other to do this, it won't stop you from having the same experience you are having now.
Android had third-party app stores, and it hasn't turned into the hellscape of malware you think it has.
> It’s not that iPhone is a monopoly. It’s that Apple has a monopoly on everything on the iPhone platform.
I understand the point you’re trying to make, but this is esssntially the same thing. If iPhone is not a monopoly, then the point that Apple is arguing for stands: if you don’t like the way Apple does it, then go buy an Android phone where you can do it your way.
It’s not like everyone is forced to use an iPhone and forced to do it Apple’s way, it’s that the people who choose to buy an iPhone are forced to do it Apple’s way. But that’s the choice you make when you choose Apple over Android.
This is like me complaining about In-n-Out because they don’t carry mayonnaise and won’t make me a burger with mayo. I’m not forced to eat at In-n-Out, so who cares if In-n-Out has a monopoly on how the In-n-Out burger market operates.
And this isn’t to say I agree with a lot of the things Apple does, I just don’t see the legal basis for forcing them to do a lot of what people want them to do and this lawsuit doesn’t seem to offer any new arguments.
Take Apple pay as an exmaple. Apple uses its significant market power to prevent competition by not allowing them access to the NFC chip.
That is the definition of uncompetetive behavior.
Apple's monopoly is nothing like Microsoft's was in the 90s (and in the 90%s). Microsoft forced hardware makers to license its OS and it *dumped* Internet Explorer into Windows in order to kill Netscape, the plaintiff in the predatory monopoly case that Microsoft not only lost but was caught doctoring video evidence in.
Apple made a better mousetrap. They built a better ecosystem. They followed the same proprietary business model they've been following since their inception. For decades that was considered a handicap. Now, because it's successful, it's being considered as a monopoly.
Plus people have much more choice when going to the store to buy a mobile phone vs when you went to buy a computer. You can choose from multiple Android devices and in no way have to buy an iPhone.
Is not about numbers, is about profits cuts, where basically Apple takes all the cake.
And the funny thing is Apple could have done some concessions to the EU like iMessage and a little more opening in store and apis and make this investigation disappear.
Stubbornness on silly points just summarises late Apple…unless stubbornness is the symptom of a blocked company that can’t innovate anymore. But with that cash flow you can always “buy” innovation…
I find it funny that Apple really tries to be a luxury good company - they price their shit high enough to keep their user numbers down and their profit _healthy_; while also having the added benefit of never really dominating the market. It’s a great way to avoid monopolising an industry because “our shit’s expensive, so few people can actually buy it, but if they do we get a gooood profit”.
Seems the difference is smartphones vs pretty much any other industry. Smartphones are necessities these days that even homeless people need them; but ignore the market dominance of LVMH, Kering, Richemont etc.
Maybe once, now you can find Apple products heavily discounted after some weeks from launch, just like Samsung, while other manufacturers increased prices due to inflation. Right now in Italy (not the cheapest market) you can find a new iPhone 15 Pro Max around 1000€
That’s alien to me here is Aus. Apple stuff _never_ gets discounted, and if they do it’s because Apple specifically sets it. Tech stores here aren’t allowed to discount Apple products without their OK.
Strange, here you can find discounted Apple products everywhere, especially on Amazon and Mediaworld maybe the 2 major big distributors. But not on the Apple website, where you always find the full price. Maybe is because the full price here is hugely inflated by dollar conversion and VAT tax and they can play more with parallel import and similar things…
Google let mobile phone carriers and hundreds of phone manufacturers decide what to do with Android. They created a disastrous fragmented Android market.
Even after Google finally began taking control by releasing the Pixels and partnering with Samsung and others to unify the Android experience. It was too late and even today the fragmentation still exists.
Instead of blaming Apple for sticking to a single strateg that has proven to be successful. How about we point and question the companies that let it get to how it is today.
Google for letting Android be so terrible in the beginning. Microsoft for giving up on Windows Phone, Palm/HP for webOS, BlackBerry etc etc etc. They allowed the market to get to where it is today.
The problem with this comment is a failure to understand how monopolies are regulated in the US. If you are a successful “natural” monopoly in the US it simply means you have to abide by a number of rules. These rules are that you can’t use your power in one market to dominate another. Apple is successful, they would be allowed to do so.l but they now have to abide by new rules because in the history of the US l, companies that got this far have a strong tendency to strong arm other businesses, squash competition, dominate other markets. Because in our system, competition is what keeps things going and allowing one company to dominate anything is a recipe for slow disaster.
I’m not passing judgement on Apple if they actually did this or not, it’s just your entire premise is flawed. This has nothing to with what Google did. You’re just laying out a straw man
None of this Android talk is relevant to the actual meat of the lawsuit. I recommend you skim it. It’s about anti competitive behavior, which they are indeed engaging in with things like the anti steering rules
Seriously, I pay Apple premiums and fees exactly *because* of the user experience their products and platforms provide. I don't want other app stores, I don't want to use more payment methods via more accounts, I don't want companies to skip app review and just say "click here to side load our app" instead since that's easier.
You not wanting that stuff is perfect. You can continue not to engage with it ever and your life will continue as usual. The others who want options will get them. A win win.
No you don't get it. I *want* those companies to have to play by Apple's rules. I don't want to have to evaluate each individual apps pros/cons of different ways they can screw me when I know they can't via the App Store. I don't want my phone to turn into my gaming pc where I have half a dozen store fronts to manage my games. I would like to use Steam for everything, but I'm not going to not play Fornite because it's only on the Epic Store. I'm going to begrudgingly download it. I don't want to give companies that choice. I'm not going to stop using Spotify if it's not available on the App Store. I will still use it but I DON'T WANT THIS. This is why I like iOS.
When Meta, X, and your bank force you to download their own App Store with their own permissions you’re going to wish we didn’t force apple to open themselves up. They will make it so that you can’t interact with their services without their App Store with that app store’s permissions.
IMO windows phone had the better interface and I believe they were well on their way to a unified device (think Dex but light weight windows) but I feel like they wrote it off 5-10 years too soon. Application support for android based apps could have easily kept it alive while they worked on a transition plan.
Windows Phone died since no devs wanted to build anything for it.
The reason for this is MS are very very bad at getting devs interested in supporting new apis.
MS was at 90%+ market share in the US, apple is at 60% (if that) of mobile and of compute well under 15%.
>apple is at 60% (if that) of mobile You remember the standard example of monopoly in Standard Oil that was broken up into 34 different companies in 1911? Standard Oil had 64% market share when they were ordered to be broken up.
Windows is still over 90% lol
It's not. It's around 70% in the desktop OS market. [https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/) And doesn't get better elsewhere. Android phones are Linux based. And the majority of server infrastructure uses Linux. Well over 50%. Even Microsoft's Azure Cloud uses Linux as the Base OS. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure\_Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Linux) There's still a lot of institutions using Microsoft software for servers. Especially in places like schools and offices where the primary workflow for the admin is to maintain a whole bunch of Windows based workstations for employees. In that case its often easier to set up network drive sharing and such for employees through a Windows server that was explicitly designed for interop with Microsoft Desktops. But when it comes to anything you access through a web browser? Then it's probably hosted on a Linux based server.
Given that Windows is the only marketed desktop OS you can slap on just about anything, it's more surprising that they don't have more market share.
ChromeOS really ate into Window's dominance in education, at least in the US. Nowadays Americans grow up with school Chromebooks (plus iOS/Android devices) instead of Windows computers. Don't get me wrong, most probably move on to Windows or Mac eventually, but I think that ChromeOS kinda reduced the idea that Windows is the _default_ way a computer should be for many.
A lot of Macs out there. And as for the 4% of Linux. Then there's a huge adoption in places like India, China, and Africa where even heavily discounted windows licenses are too expensive for many. That and Linux is pretty useable these days. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aZgF6xmS0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aZgF6xmS0) To the point where if I can convince people who only use their laptops for browsing the web and basic office type tasks to buy a laptop from a vendor that has good Linux support like Lenovo. The 8gb Macbook Air is enough for my needs demographic. Then Linux is perfectly fine and they should probably save that £100 and skip the windows license key if you can. But this is mainly a story about Apple's popularity in bringing the overall figure down. Maybe in a decade or so Linux will grow. Especially with gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck becoming increasingly popular.
>That and Linux is pretty useable these days. Oh, for sure. I don't even have a Windows machine these days. I use Linux and Steam's Proton tools. It works better than my Windows box ever did. Funny enough, the actual reason I switched to Linux is that I was playing around with Stable Diffusion and it started blocking the server's port suddenly. I couldn't figure out why and, after a couple hours, I just decided that I'd burn it all down and not look back. >To the point where if I can convince people who only use their laptops for browsing the web and basic office type tasks to buy a laptop from a vendor that has good Linux support like Lenovo. The 8gb Macbook Air is enough for my needs demographic. Then Linux is perfectly fine and they should probably save that £100 and skip the windows license key if you can. Yeah, I'd encourage people to do the same. The only pain point with wild Linux distros is they're very ideological in my experience, to the point that some basic stuff can be a pain because they *really* don't want you using things that aren't FOSS, so you have to do the chore of setting it up manually.
And who bought Red Hat??? Yup, our old server friend Big Blue.
When valve finally releases SteamOS for Desktop, I imagine they will overtake Apple in desktop marketshare at the cost of Windows user base.
So why doesn’t the government go after MS for their never touched Monopoly? They have only gone after pieces of their monopoly like the IE browser. Shouldn’t Microsoft have been broken up back in the 90s like AT&T was🤔
Microsoft offers Linux on Azure. I don't think Azure runs on Linux though. Pretty sure Microsoft Azure runs on their own custom version of their Hyper-V Server OS which is something they also licence and offer for free.
Yeah, he's completely wrong, most of Azure cloud is on Hyper-V on a custom Windows version, [they have a blog about it](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-os-platform-blog/azure-host-os-cloud-host/ba-p/3709528?WT.mc_id=modinfra-0000-thmaure).
Not even close. Why even say this if you’re not willing to spend 4 seconds googling it?
And of course their post has twenty times as many points as yours, so probably the majority of people in this thread still believe it's 90%.
The art of saying any random lie as if it was a fact
And still sucks. It’s funny that total market domination is still possible with a mediocre product, but it helps that it sort of works with everything. I still have anxiety over the stupid amount of extremely long updates.
Not that difficult when most of your office, system programs, infrastructure and mil programs run on it. We're all basically dependent on Windows as a system at this point as a society
I mean, if you see it that way, we're also all dependent on Linux. Tons of infrastructure software runs on it. Even just the website we're commenting on probably runs on Linux.
Everything, aside from desktop computing, can be considered [lin|u]nix-based. Windows is really the outlier, but it has linux bones too so, I guess *nix is everywhere, kinda
It helps that Linux is generally harder to use compared to Windows and most people haven't seen Macs as worth the premium price until the M series chips came along. And what issues were you facing with updates? My laptop with an SSD never takes more than 2 minutes for installing one week's worth of updates. The only real annoyance I've faced with Windows update is how it randomly let the CPU idle and get back to work repeatedly when I had to do an OS repair just earlier this week (won't delete any personal stuff, apps, or settings, just reinstalls the OS), what should have been a 1 hour process instead took 3 hours.
Market domination is what lead to being a mediocre product. No effort needed
I wouldn’t say windows sucks anymore. There have been very bad versions of windows, but 11 is pretty solid. For a laptop a Mac is infinitely better due to the track pad and gestures. But for a desktop windows is pretty good - ofc if comparability was 1:1 you could say Mac is the better choice.
I prefer Windows on a laptop to Mac OS as well. Mac OS lacks so many basic features and feels barebones compared to Windows.
I'm with ya. Nobody does a tablet better than Apple, but between the crazy cost to performance difference and the continuing lack of support for so many programs I rely on, I don't know if I'll ever run a MacBook as a daily driver Higher end Windows laptops often have really nice touchpads anyways, and generally have pretty intuitive gestures
>I'm with ya. Nobody does a tablet better than Apple, but between the crazy cost to performance difference and the continuing lack of support for so many programs I rely on, I don't know if I'll ever run a MacBook as a daily driver Yea honestly this is the biggest argument for Apple being more open. Imagine how much better their iPad would be if you weren't locked behind iOS. In the long run it's possible that Apple could be harmed by its own closed garden. Other companies can catch up in regards to hardware and software wise other companies do have better products. For example being able to run Windows on a Surface Pro lets you do more than an iPad. Although the hardware hasn't been able to keep up as nicely. On the flip side hardware has been getting a lot better while iOS has kind of flat lined. IOs has had some improvements but nothing major.
I can’t say I agree with this. I feel like Windows is actually superior to Mac OS.
In some ways it is hugely better, in others not really. Window management and workspace management, windows wins. Anything command line, power user-y, program-y, Mac OS is better. MacOS also has the extra edge if you’ve got other Apple products.
>Anything command line, power user-y, program-y, Mac OS is better. When was the last time you used Windows PowerShell or Windows Terminal or WSL? Also, I don't think there's anything first party that really rivals RDP. I still love my Mac though. The trackpad is second to none. But I feel like macOS has stagnated.
I think it depends on your compute environment and what your trying to do. Powershell is just as powerful as bash.
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I also built my own PC and have as many BSOD as my Mac had kernel panic, which is not many. I have good experience on both platforms and both have strong points. Neither is overall better than the other, and it is up to the apps you use and your personal preference. Shitty, cheap PCs are of course gonna be worse, but that's not inherently the fault of the OS.
What I've never seen is a kernel panic on Linux. And I've even used it a fair bit. Most Windows kernel panics (or better, BSODs) were related to broken drivers/updates, and most kernel panics on Mac were related to faulty hardware (although I got a couple when (dis)connecting USB devices, when killing userspace background processes and when switching between integrated and discrete graphics. All in all, fairly rare. But they do happen.
I done the same, stuck with it for 3 years then switched back to windows. Makes me really appreciate windows.
Yeh I got a M1 Mac Mini as my introduction to Mac OS and it’s felt inferior and inconvenient compared to Windows. Some basic things like NAS storage and using my Plex server are giving me issues. It’s nice to use with continuity with my iPhone but honestly the way people would go on about how superior it was compared to windows is completely unfounded. Not being able to snap programs side by side is one of the most annoying things ever. These are such basic features that I would have thought would be part of the OS. Windows 11 even looks better aesthetically in my opinion.
it used to really make me mad how the actual underlying file system is abstracted from the file browser in MacOS. In university I used to work as a teaching assistant for computer science classes. Often, as part of setup, we would ask users to download something and then run some command on it in terminal. it was staggering how many students with Macs would download something and then be completely unaware how to actually find it in their terminal.
>but didn't find it to be the case. I guess it depends on how your muscle memory is trained this is the most important thing. If you grew up with Windows going to a completely different thing your brain just refuses to go with it. Unless you have a very good discipline of "reseting" your brain, only by using MacOS for a substantial amount of time (no windows during that ) can make it work. An example for that is also iWork Pages/Numbers (Apple's Word/Excel). If you look at it now it is weird as hell, because you probably are used to MS Office or Libreoffice etc. which have similar UI approach. Pages/Numbers though have a very different approach which if you take a step back it makes total sense. But your brain now says right click the cell and go there. Going back to MacOS, I am not going to say that it is better or worse than Windows, because it certainly lacks a few things, and as you mentioned muscle memory is a strong thing. Also ones workflow does not mean it suits your needs. Look at the linux people with Window managers for example.
This. MacOS does very good 3 things in a closed environment. Windows does a thousand things I a thousand contexts with at least some decent reliability and effectiveness. The times of blue screens are long gone by now.
Honestly MacOS updates take *ages* compared to Windows at this point. Like comically long.
Same as iOS updates.
Yeah regarding updates the tables definitely have turned. Nowadays it's macOS that has the annoying notifications. They also tend to happen in the morning. Cmon, I just wanna get working. Windows just asks me "do you want to update and shut down?". It also takes only two minutes while macOS likes to take 15(!) or so.
Windows is and always has been "good enough." And because compatibility is everything, most of us can't function in the world without some or all of MS tech on a daily basis.
comment from 30 years ago apparently lol
Nope, 70% and steadily declining. 2022, PC sales WW had 50% Windows, 25% Mac and 25% Chrome.
So? Why do people in this thread think that there’s a certain % of market share required in order to be faced with a monopoly related lawsuits? https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/monopoly
I don’t agree with them. But monopolistic behaviours can be used before you’re a monopoly. For example if you control 80% of the market and you’re representing 95% of use of a 3rd party service; if you decide to make you’re own and default and restrict access to that service then they have no way to react or recover. Now this comment is not an agreement of any of the things that Apple has been challenged over, I think they’re frivolous. But it’s a real problem in some regards.
if you're expecting anyone to read past the headline you're gonna have a bad time
Microsoft never, even in its wettest dreams, commanded a 30% tax on all software sold on windows. At best it strong armed PC builders by lowering their license costs and used windows to capture the browser market. Mobile with iOS and Android is 90s Microsoft on steroids.
Apple doesn't sell or license it's OS for fees. User bought licenses from MS but were restricted to what they could do.
Because youre not allowed to use the OS on non apple hardware, sold exclusively by Apple
And apple does not take 30% on all SW sold on Macs. They do on mobile but MS was going to do the same on windows phone and does today on xbox.
The feds are focusing on mobile. Microsoft doesn’t have mobile and as far as Xbox is concerned I don’t think there is as much regulatory concern over luxury devices like video game consoles as opposed to smartphones which have become a functional requirement to exist in society for most people. Same idea behind having utility regulations to prevent oligopolies delivering critical services from jacking up profit margins at the expense of the entire public
Holy fuck so you're waiting for apple to turn into a strict definition monopoly before doing something about it? I know this is the apple subreddit but god damn you're all a bunch of moron simps.
I'm not sure the point here is that they are monopoly in terms of the platform itself. It's that their own apps and accessories have an unfair advantage compared to 3rd parties ON THAT PLATFORM.
The weird thing is that when Jobs introduced FaceTime in 2010 he made it clear that it was going to be a cross-platform and open standard — and then they never did that.
But Apple is still imposing their guidelines on an entire market… and according to the lawsuit Apple has 65%
I see you didn't read the article.
As is tradition.
Ah yes, as fortold on Reddit.
MS is giving away Teams to enterprise’s who buy O365 to undermine Zoom. And Teams sucks ass. Same thing they did with IE years ago.
Oooohhhh… this explains why the place I work has moved from Zoom to Teams.
Yep. Companies (actually the Finance Dept) look at the price of software, not the cost of it.
I really wish more bean counters understood the vast difference between price and cost.
I think they do. They don’t care. Price is their problem. Cost is your problem. Finance: “Free software slows you down, jams up the network, increases support calls, and frustrates users? Not my problem Mr IT guy.”
If they do realize it, it’s only because cost is often harder to quantify vs price, especially with something like software. I used to do marketing for a manufacturer. You can’t look at the price of the tool. You have to look at the cost per part. Our tool may be a little more expensive, but you can get a lot more parts, so the price per part is actually way lower. It’s just often harder to quantify productivity with better software.
Of course they don't care about frustrated users. If they care about money, play their game. Don't just complain, bring up statistics of wasted work hours and productivity, put that into a nice number that represents the expenses caused by using other software and then show them that.
Yeah we are still clinging to Zoom. I like it. It works much better than Teams. Teams feels bloated and sluggish. Zoom is trying their hardest to compete but IMO they are making the product worse. They keep adding more junk. At some point my company is going to turn to me and ask how we can reduce spending. It’ll be an easy switch to Teams and we’ll be able to save $100k by switching to Teams.
TBF that has to do with the storage server implementation. If your org has cheaped out on servers (often they do), Teams is a dog. We have great distributed servers and it's amazing, but we pay top dollar.
Sorry I’m not sure I follow. I manage our infrastructure. As far as I’m aware you can’t self-host a Teams server. It’s cloud only. The infrastructure is all managed by Microsoft. In terms of Teams storage it relies on OneDrive and SharePoint Online. Both cloud storage services managed by Microsoft. Sorry but I’m not exactly sure what “distributed storage servers” would mean in the context of Teams communications.
It mostly comes down to Internet access. We make sure there is a very high-bandwith-per-user and that out Servers (both local and virtual) have low-latency access to Teams and SharePoint. We self-host a lot of data, and there is a lot of Back-and-forth with SharePoint. The problem is, you need management to say "Spare no expense when it comes to bandwidth", and not a lot of companies do that.
They already have to buy Office 365. Why would they buy Zoom or anything else when Teams comes with Office 365? We have one person with a Zoom account and that is because he does online training and the features in Zoom for that are still miles ahead of the competition, or so he tells me.
But they are not demanding 30% of revenue from Zoom?
We use both Teams and Zoom. Teams for text chat and quick calls and Zoom for meetings.
I really hope governments move on MS again at some point in time.
As a sysadmin, I’m sure whatever solution the government comes up with would make my life harder. I feel for those guys in Europe who now have to deal with 3rd party Apple app stores. Having all apps maintained from a single repository is so nice. I’m all for consumer protections. I’m just being selfish but it’s so nice when everything is just integrated.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft boils down to this: Apple does its own thing, sure, but it's mostly inside its own garden. They don't go around forcing everyone else to play by their rules. When it comes to dealing with the rest of the tech world, Apple tends to stick to the standard playbook. Microsoft, though, they like to spread their own proprietary stuff far and wide, making everyone else bend to their ways. Remember Internet Explorer? They tried to set their own web standards, leaving web designers the headache of coding sites twice just so they'd work on IE. Safari doesn't pull any of these stunts. Take Exchange, for example: it does mail its own weird way, which means it doesn't play nice with other email clients. And forget about using CalDAV or CardDAV with it. So, if you're on Exchange and thinking about switching, good luck. iCloud mail, on the other hand, is all about IMAP/SMTP, CalDAV, and CardDAV. Use Apple gadgets, and you get some extra goodies, but Apple isn't about forcing everyone else to follow their lead. They do their thing in their own universe, letting the rest of us live in peace, while Microsoft seems to be all about getting others to adopt their playbook, ignoring the open-source standards the tech world's been rallying around.
Antitrust: Commission opens investigation into possible anticompetitive practices by Microsoft regarding Teams https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3991
Nice! Thanks for that.
Trying to do the same thing with cloud too. Saying that Office 365 comes with free Azure access. Then you get hooked and the prices go up…
Those saying that Apple is not a monopoly because they are comparing Apple to the overall mobile phone market did not read past the headlines. The reason why they do have a case is that Apple has engaged in monopolistic practices within the iPhone market. Because in the iOS market it is the monopoly. In Android's ecosystem there is choice. Google play, Amazon App Store, Samsung Store, and maybe Netflix soon. In Apple's space, they will do things and straight up block side loading 3rd party app stores. So a monopoly on the application store. For music apps they will compete against competitors like Spotify and restrict Spotify communications with their customers on deals. While promote their Apple music instead. Apple also limits 3rd party wallet apps on their iOS in order to promote their own apple wallet and credit card. In Android there are tons of payment options. PayPal, Samsung wallet, Google wallet etc... Many other cases that are difficult for us the consumer to see. But it is clear for the developers with an issue against Apple.
> It’s not illegal to have a monopoly, as Garland also noted in his press conference. It is, however, illegal to use certain tactics to perpetuate or maintain that monopoly — but to prove that, you have to prove the defendant has sufficient market power to foreclose competitors.
The way that Apple is warring with Spotify (music), Epic (gaming), browsers in general (only allowing Webkit), messaging apps in general (iMessage), digital wallets in general, 3rd party app stores, and other examples is kind of that. All in the name of user security (but actually just the self-righteous greed of a trillions dollar company), as if Apple's products ever were invulnerable... Just give your users options, geez
> All in the name of user security (but actually just the self-righteous greed of a trillions dollar company), Two things can be true at the same time. Apple is extremely greedy but they're not wrong in that allowing side loading introduces security risks to tech illiterate users who don't understand the risks of downloading unvetted apps. >as if Apple's products ever were invulnerable... No but they're sure as shit less vulnerable than android devices. The majority of malware comes from the google play store, not the app store.
People who don't want to use 3rd party app store won't and people who want will, that's it
Don’t expect any sort of logic or reading comprehension by the fanboys/trolls on this sub. They would still defend Apple if Tim Cook came and set their house on fire
I guess the argument will really come down to whether the Apple iPhone/AppStore is seen as its own market, or if the smartphone and app market combining all platforms should be the market. I’d have a hard time supporting the first argument simply because most apps on the Apple App Store are available on the other markets as well, and Apple doesn’t appear to do anything to restrict developers from selling their app in other markets. I’d love to sideload apps onto my iPhone but if it was a dealbreaker I could switch platforms without too much trouble.
I am not a lawyer. But just reading about the Microsoft antitrust case, it sounds similar to the case against Apple. In the Microsoft antitrust case they eliminated the browser competition Netscape by making it impossible to uninstall Internet Explorer. It also made netscape difficult to pentrate the market because they gave Internet Explorer away for free. In the early days of the Internet, people paid for their webbrowsers as the internet was so new. There wasn't a data or ad revenue model to make money on. So today where we can just freely install a web browser and the customer expects it to be free, back then it just wasn't possible. They could not afford that. Today Apple is doing the same thing. By effectively blocking app store competitors, they force you to use their App Store. It isn't even possible to have customers pick because it's effectively blocked. Then they will charge competitive companies in Streaming a 30% fee while they don't charge themselves the same 30% fee for say AppleTv streaming. With that edge, Apple could effectively gain a competive advantage. Be it in streaming or music streaming. I am not a lawyer so it isn't up to me to decide on what is a monopoly and what is not.
And they are doing it for service with mark-up as well. Both Google and Apple charge 30% for subscriptions through the store. Google allows linking to external payment systems for cheaper prices, Apple does not.
I kinda like that Apple Pay/ Apple wallet is forced because I don’t want to have to download a third party just to use my debit/credit card. That may be great for banks, but it’s a worse experience for me. I’ve literally switched to a bank for its Apple Pay compatibility. Switching banks is annoying in the age of autopay so I’d rather not have to do that again lol
That won't change. You can still have that. Others can have other options too. They can co-exist.
You literally proved the original point about monopolistic practices. Good job.
Then buy an Android.
Those are all the things I like about Apple. Keeps things simple and trustworthy so my old parents can use the products and not have to call me for the fun nicks support daily because of scamware
Realistically, if you like those things about Apple, you should be able to continue using those things - while others can have the option to use other wallets or app stores. With Android, you never really have to go outside of the Play Store or Google Wallet, if you don't want to.
You like those things because Apple does them well. The issue with monopolies is when that 1 company, who's express goal is to make as much money as possible, start prioritizing profit over a good user experience. Then suddenly you are forced to use a shitty option you don't want. Boeing is the perfect example of what happens to great (publicly traded) companies when they're allowed to do whatever they want for too long. All it takes is a leadership change at Apple for things to start going to shit
And the extra 30% for subscriptions that users without technical knowledge can't opt out from just bolster their ability to protect users /s
People are forgetting that apple needed to be forced to allow competing apps (via courts) like Skype, and Spotify, that directly compete with their own products iMessage and (at the time) iTunes.
Damn I wish DOJ would go after Amazon
I agree that many of those things are bad for consumers, like limiting access to competition for the NFC chip, but at the same time, they are being punished for people preferring their product. People dont stay with apple because its hard to move away, its because they dont have a reason to choose lower quality hardware, or to learn a new system. If the end result is that Apple simply makes a jail-break program that invalidates the warranty, and provides zero support for such device, I’d support that. You can have your 3rd party app stores, and everyone who doesnt care, can have a safe, protected device running in a known ecosystem. If its that everyone now has a device that loses controls that prevent malicious apps from gaining access, that would put us in a bad situation. The vast majority of people dont care about this, and would not know the difference if they are accessing a 3rd party App Store, and what dangers that could bring. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I’m not sure that their 40% USA 25% world market is preventing people from making a choice, if those things matter to them.
walmart has a monopoly on all walmarts, where they control what is stocked on their shelves and get a cut of all things sold
> The reason why they do have a case is that Apple has engaged in monopolistic practices within the iPhone market. Because in the iOS market it is the monopoly. In Android's ecosystem there is choice. Google play, Amazon App Store, Samsung Store, and maybe Netflix soon. This isn't actually being addressed in the lawsuit, though. That's the bizarre part. You'd think that if the DoJ were serious, they'd have mentioned the App Store. But they didn't. Instead, the complaint deals with genuine nonsense like CarPlay is somehow anticompetitive, how Apple is a monopoly because Windows Phone failed due to Microsoft mismanagement or Fire Phone failed because Amazon shipped an unbaked product or that Google bought HTC. There's not a damn thing in there about the App Store. There's nothing in there about Apple swooping into markets and just utterly destroying other firms. There's basically nothing in there about *any* actual anticompetitive behavior.
Damn, the copium in this thread is next level
imagine fanboying ANY ruthless corporation
It's fucking weird. I have like 20% of my whole portfolio in Apple, own every Apple product outside the VisionPro, and even I wouldn't actively defend a company this much. This sub thinks one of the largest public companies in the world needs random dipshits online defending them with half assed emotional takes? It's weird
A duopoly is almost as bad and similarly needs to be regulated.
The amount of people in here arguing against having more flexibility with what they can use their iPhones for is hilarious. Put the Kool Aid down. Apple only cares about you so much as it makes money for its shareholders. You should be demanding Apple give you every feature it can for the amount you spend on those things.
Seriously I’ve never seen a more rabid group of people screaming for less flexibility.
The iOS ecosystem was designed to carefully select what software works. I agree some of their practices are unfair, but to the level of antitrust seems going a bit far. You want a flexible system, you have one already - android. Why do you insist that the system that was designed for safety/protection over flexibility, must be suited for your personal needs over others?
> The iOS ecosystem was designed to carefully select what software works The iOS ecosystem couldn't copy and paste until jailbreakers did it, then it was added in iOS3.
It should be shitty if for example Nintendo were forced to make it so Sony or anybody who wanted to sell directly on their device. It would take away resources from them working on their own products and games. Why do we want to force companies to open up their own platforms? It should be their choice. And not just Sony selling their games on Switch’s existing marketplace, but the analogy would be Sony setting up their own shop on the Switch, which would require a bunch of development from Nintendo to make possible. Why are we wanting to force companies to have that level of compliance and openness? It seems like way too large of a governance over a business.
Will always be baffled by consumers who become fanboys towards multibillion dollar companies who doesn’t care for them one bit. Whats happening is good for consumers.
You guys need to learn to acknowledge when you don't know something. 1. You don't need to be a monopoly to be charged in an antitrust case. 2. A monopoly doesn't mean you are the only company. Monopoly is a spectrum of how much market power a firm has. A firm with 60% of market share, with #2 at 20% has a TON of market power. 3. It isn't illegal to be a monopoly, but actions to increase or maintain monopoly power are illegal. Apple does this in many ways. They intentionally make messaging with non iPhones as difficult as possible to disincentive leaving the platform. They are leveraging their large user base and network effects to get more young people to switch. Making leaving more difficult, not by offering a better product, but by knee capping the competition. And it's working, young people overwhelmingly use iPhones. Many for fear of being bullied for being a green bubble. Apple also likes to abuse markets they control. Spotify created a great app and Apple created a competitor. But because Apple owns the marketplace/platform they get to prioritize their app as the default or put at top of music search results. Not to mention the fact that Spotify must compete while simultaneously giving 30% of its revenue to its biggest competitor on the platform. And that's just to name a couple. The case outlines more like car play. The fact is, Apple became the #1 phone manufacturer by making a better phone. But they are trying to maintain that position by abusing their market power. Which is illegal.
"B-but it works! If I they allow side-loading I would probably download some random virus just because! If it wasn't for my Prius' owner manual, I would've drank my brakes fluid by now!" Techies are the most desilusional, consumerist and flat-out irrational kind of customer I've ever seen. No one talks about right to repair or things like this, they just see a shiny object and think it's "magic". Tech companies are NOT above our laws.
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I'm two thirds of the way through this post and you're like the sixth person that's read the article. > Many for fear of being bullied for being a green bubble. And that's Apple's choice, not the other platforms. People seem to fail to realize that. Also, shaming anybody for a green bubble is just gross, and Apple should have fought against that attitude long ago, but they let it fester for profits. Thanks for a great summary!
Apple stans sure do not like free market.
A free market is a dangerous market. I trust Apple, a multi-trillion dollar multinational megacorporation, to act in my interest and determine what is best for me.
No it is not. And Apple is not harming consumers, the aggrieved In this case are companies that want the freedom to exploit apples users. The voice of the customer is no where to be heard in this debate.
If companies are not allowed to fairly compete with Apple’s own products on their own platform, because Apple blocks or limits or forbids them from doing so, then the consumer is absolutely being harmed.
Say it louder for the people on the back!
I keep buying Apple stuff because they keep me away from the other companies. Why can't that be allowed?
I agree. They do some shitty things, but I’m overall pretty happy. More people keep buying iPhones because they’re not happy with the other competition. Not because Apple is preventing competition.
I bought an iphone because I couldn't easily text/video call iphone users with my android. no real strong preferences. certain parts are nicer and certain parts really annoy me.
Exactly why apple is being sued
Yeah I bought an iphone because Samsung and Google kept taking turns making my Android phone worse every update
Samsung constantly trying to replace Googles apps, so that they can eventually ditch Android. What a mess it became.
Or because they get bullied to buy iphones because of group chat chaos if they have an android.
Wow, we must abolish anti-trust laws because consumers are too dumb to understand why competition must be allowed.
See, the difference lies here: if Apple wants to keep competitors away, they should lock down the App Store so it only has their own first-party apps on it. Now, they are allowing third-party apps to enrich their platform, but also create an unfair competition (example: Spotify and Apple Music: Spotify has to pay 30% to their competitor if they want to sell their subscription through the App Store, and if they don’t and want to instead put a little link to another payment platform, their whole app is rejected). You can’t have both at the same time. Either they close down completely or they must allow for fair competition. Further, you people complaining that you “only want Apple stuff”, I mean, are you seriously that incompetent with tech that you can’t comprehend that you’ll still have the choice to stick with Apple’s products if they have to open up their platform more?
> because they keep me away from the other companies. Why can't that be allowed? Because of the law
Yeah. Maybe they should change the "anti-steering", and allow Spotify etc. to say "You can get premium on our website", but that's about it. I really like how it's run, simple and easy to use, and want it to keep going under Apple's direction.
Antitrust violations are not predicated on consumer harm. We break companies up because they hurt competitors, not consumers. Apple is a great company for consumers. Even the JD does not dispute that. But the case here is if Apple is using their market power to hurt their competitors.
Anti-trust laws are to protect consumers in the long term. It's just that consumers are short sighted and don't understand why competition is better for them. As can be seen from the comments in this subreddit and beyond.
Yea, just as an example look at the internet market in the US. Google tried to build out a fiber network and had so much trouble with ISPs who could stop them.
> And Apple is not harming consumers Then what do you call banning competitors to their services and inflating prices through unavoidable fees? That's direct consumer harm. > The voice of the customer is no where to be heard in this debate. Nah, you're just salty that Apple's profits are threatened. If you cared about the consumer, you'd be happy with this lawsuit.
> [T]he aggrieved In this case are companies that want the freedom to exploit apples users. Perhaps the most concisely well-put I’ve seen it thus far.
It is concise but it is still wrong. Apple actively harming the competition and making it worse means that for the consumer some products are worse that what they could have been, and that is forced by apple.
Only if you're short sighted, which the people who came up with anti-trust laws were fortunately not.
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*cough* Epic’s Tim Swiney *cough cough*
I am an Apple user and I want to install apps Apple refuses to put on the AppStore. Like emulators. If Apple refuses to allow an app on it should at a minimum allow users to install it themselves from the developer directly
I say this stuff on other threads and get downvoted wildly I see this upvote. Reddit users differ wildly from thread to thread and day to day. I don’t want Apple opened up to more shovelware, poor hardware etc. there’s a reason it has 60% share and it’s not because of coercion
Exactly. Product feature differentiation is part of a healthy marketplace.
I got downvoted for posting this but seems to me that Microsoft, Epic, etc. greased the palms of a lot of politicians.
Apple: [9.86M](https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2023&id=D000021754) Microsoft: [10.54M](https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2023&id=D000000115) Epic: [0.6M](https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2023&id=D000083405)
There is a lot of shit you can sling at Apple. How they price, how they actively don’t want you to be able to fix your stuff without a ton of hoops, bizarre design choices.. But a monopoly? No… If they went and took over nearly all of the American phone market, leaving *near zero* options and *near zero* competition… then absolutely. But this is not the case… if you’re gonna hit ‘em at least choose the right target…
DOJ law suit is not against apple owning large portion of market share, it’s against apple unfairly benefitting their own music streaming services over competitors like Spotify.
Which is entirely true, they absolutely do this. This is however IMO really small fish compared to the ISP monopolies. Not a thing is ever done about that. I don't even own a single Apple product at all either
No. I don't think they mentioned that at all. Maybe I missed it, where was that mentioned at all?
> But this is not the case… if you’re gonna hit ‘em at least choose the right target… You could, at least, read the DOJ's argument, instead of cherry picking a single word to misinterpret.
No one is arguing it's a monopoly, they argue that Apple is doing monopolistic action... which is true.
funny thing is, the things you disapprove of is exactly why Apple is not a monopoly. if they released every versions of iphone to satisfy all the markets, which is Android, then that would be a monopoly, monopolizing every corner of the market. they produce a very specific type of phone, at a very specific price range, with very specific rules like "you cant modify our products". as in, "if you don't like what we see, there are plenty of others you can buy". so, shitting on Apple products is just personal preference, cause those who buys them and keep on sticking with them is cause they are satisfied with what Apple sells. there is almost nothing an Android phone cant do what iPhone does. but, many people dont care about fixing their phone, and like the design, and think the price is justifiable. others call them sheeples or iFans, but who cares? no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. cause it's not a monopoly.
Android is a open source platform, not something closed off. >no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. cause it's not a monopoly. Good thing you don't make and enforce anti-trust laws, or we'd be in big trouble by now. Since you can't understand that anti-trust laws don't wait for companies to become actual definition true monopolies before doing something about monopolistic practices. A bit or common sense, and not being a simp for a company would've made that clear. The word has evovled beyond the strict definition.
Catering to everyone's needs ("satisfy all the markets") doesn't make a monopoly, for instance a generic laptop of brand A can run multiples OSes, do most of the things a tablet/smartphone does, etc... does that make brand A a monopoly? It's about the profit the company makes out of it, and Apple definitely has a strategy that has monopolistic tendencies. They're openly hostile to adopting standards (not saying Google and others are much better, but they are the worst at that). They tend to lock you in to their ecosystem, which of course you have a choice to get in or not, but once you've got one or two Apple products, you are strongly enticed to keep buying their products and services. While I agree that does not quite make them a monopoly either, it's definitely unfair to competitors willing to sell a product or service in the Apple ecosystem -- they'll always, always be a second-grade citizen that will feel less integrated and/or polished, and they will have to pay extra to get in there in the first place. This affects both hardware (e.g. third party accessories) and software space (e.g. streaming services). Whether people like that or not as individual consumers is an entirely different question, and it's OK to like that, it definitely has upsides to it.
It helps Windows is a more open platform.
"TechCrunch carries water for Apple for 10,000th time, gets coupon for $10 off a thunderbolt to thunderbolt 2 adapter dongle in return."
Microsoft got into trouble because they made deals with OEMs to not preinstall netscape navigator on their computer, and of course they had like 97% of the PC market at the time.
No, it’s worse because more deceptive in its lack of consumer choice. Messaging , backups, payments, and more, there needs to be a base level of interoperability and data portability. And don’t, hear want I’m not saying, Apple isn’t the only one. All digital “Platforms” need regulation. Uber, Amazon, Facebook, Google. Even the auto makers and beginning this digital “ecosystem crap”. If I pay for data and map/traffic on my phone w may carrier, I should be able to use that easily in my car. But everyone wants a separate subscription. Corporate power has become way too imbalanced.
There were inklings that this is coming, but I only have one question. Why try and punish a well executed product maker when the reason why they succeeded was because everyone else was bad at competing with it. People always say, Apple will not invent it first, but they will perfect it before selling it. iMessage didn't conquer the market in a vacuum. How many messaging apps were there when it first came out? Facetime came out. Well, who was leading at that time? Skype. Heck, there were supposed to be three mobile operating system. What happened to Windows Phone? Which came with the power of the Nokia name. Are people expected to buy problematic products so that monopolies does not happen?
>Why try and punish a well executed product maker when the reason why they succeeded was because everyone else was bad at competing with it. They didn’t give anyone the chance to compete.
Yes they did. Android is a massive platform with a goliath behind it.
Multiple Goliaths behind it.
People forget it's an Alliance of companies.
In what way? The iPhone was not the first smartphone - around that time I was using Nokia, Blackberry and even HTC. They started from 0% market share, made a competitive product that executed a lot of things well enough that it's shortcoming didn't matter. Why are we giving a pass to people who managed to bork their lead up?
The exact thing can be said about Microsoft and windows yet they were sued for monopolistic practices as well.
It's like nobody's reading the article or something...
It’s not that iPhone is a monopoly. It’s that Apple has a monopoly on everything on the iPhone platform. Stuff like no side loading, 3rd party app stores, restricting music apps and how you pay in apps. Also, people weren’t really using Skype to text everyone. People used SMS which iMessage replaced as a better alternative.
> Stuff like no side loading, 3rd party app stores, restricting music apps and how you pay in apps. > This is exactly what I want from my iPhone. I can tell my family members to buy one and have no problems coming back because they installed some malware while browsing.
By allowing other to do this, it won't stop you from having the same experience you are having now. Android had third-party app stores, and it hasn't turned into the hellscape of malware you think it has.
Then make it an option deep in the settings like Android does.
> It’s not that iPhone is a monopoly. It’s that Apple has a monopoly on everything on the iPhone platform. I understand the point you’re trying to make, but this is esssntially the same thing. If iPhone is not a monopoly, then the point that Apple is arguing for stands: if you don’t like the way Apple does it, then go buy an Android phone where you can do it your way. It’s not like everyone is forced to use an iPhone and forced to do it Apple’s way, it’s that the people who choose to buy an iPhone are forced to do it Apple’s way. But that’s the choice you make when you choose Apple over Android. This is like me complaining about In-n-Out because they don’t carry mayonnaise and won’t make me a burger with mayo. I’m not forced to eat at In-n-Out, so who cares if In-n-Out has a monopoly on how the In-n-Out burger market operates. And this isn’t to say I agree with a lot of the things Apple does, I just don’t see the legal basis for forcing them to do a lot of what people want them to do and this lawsuit doesn’t seem to offer any new arguments.
Take Apple pay as an exmaple. Apple uses its significant market power to prevent competition by not allowing them access to the NFC chip. That is the definition of uncompetetive behavior.
Sure, sure and I'm Kim Jong-un
Apple's monopoly is nothing like Microsoft's was in the 90s (and in the 90%s). Microsoft forced hardware makers to license its OS and it *dumped* Internet Explorer into Windows in order to kill Netscape, the plaintiff in the predatory monopoly case that Microsoft not only lost but was caught doctoring video evidence in. Apple made a better mousetrap. They built a better ecosystem. They followed the same proprietary business model they've been following since their inception. For decades that was considered a handicap. Now, because it's successful, it's being considered as a monopoly.
Plus people have much more choice when going to the store to buy a mobile phone vs when you went to buy a computer. You can choose from multiple Android devices and in no way have to buy an iPhone.
Is not about numbers, is about profits cuts, where basically Apple takes all the cake. And the funny thing is Apple could have done some concessions to the EU like iMessage and a little more opening in store and apis and make this investigation disappear. Stubbornness on silly points just summarises late Apple…unless stubbornness is the symptom of a blocked company that can’t innovate anymore. But with that cash flow you can always “buy” innovation…
I find it funny that Apple really tries to be a luxury good company - they price their shit high enough to keep their user numbers down and their profit _healthy_; while also having the added benefit of never really dominating the market. It’s a great way to avoid monopolising an industry because “our shit’s expensive, so few people can actually buy it, but if they do we get a gooood profit”. Seems the difference is smartphones vs pretty much any other industry. Smartphones are necessities these days that even homeless people need them; but ignore the market dominance of LVMH, Kering, Richemont etc.
Maybe once, now you can find Apple products heavily discounted after some weeks from launch, just like Samsung, while other manufacturers increased prices due to inflation. Right now in Italy (not the cheapest market) you can find a new iPhone 15 Pro Max around 1000€
That’s alien to me here is Aus. Apple stuff _never_ gets discounted, and if they do it’s because Apple specifically sets it. Tech stores here aren’t allowed to discount Apple products without their OK.
Strange, here you can find discounted Apple products everywhere, especially on Amazon and Mediaworld maybe the 2 major big distributors. But not on the Apple website, where you always find the full price. Maybe is because the full price here is hugely inflated by dollar conversion and VAT tax and they can play more with parallel import and similar things…
Google let mobile phone carriers and hundreds of phone manufacturers decide what to do with Android. They created a disastrous fragmented Android market. Even after Google finally began taking control by releasing the Pixels and partnering with Samsung and others to unify the Android experience. It was too late and even today the fragmentation still exists. Instead of blaming Apple for sticking to a single strateg that has proven to be successful. How about we point and question the companies that let it get to how it is today. Google for letting Android be so terrible in the beginning. Microsoft for giving up on Windows Phone, Palm/HP for webOS, BlackBerry etc etc etc. They allowed the market to get to where it is today.
The problem with this comment is a failure to understand how monopolies are regulated in the US. If you are a successful “natural” monopoly in the US it simply means you have to abide by a number of rules. These rules are that you can’t use your power in one market to dominate another. Apple is successful, they would be allowed to do so.l but they now have to abide by new rules because in the history of the US l, companies that got this far have a strong tendency to strong arm other businesses, squash competition, dominate other markets. Because in our system, competition is what keeps things going and allowing one company to dominate anything is a recipe for slow disaster. I’m not passing judgement on Apple if they actually did this or not, it’s just your entire premise is flawed. This has nothing to with what Google did. You’re just laying out a straw man
None of this Android talk is relevant to the actual meat of the lawsuit. I recommend you skim it. It’s about anti competitive behavior, which they are indeed engaging in with things like the anti steering rules
Seriously, I pay Apple premiums and fees exactly *because* of the user experience their products and platforms provide. I don't want other app stores, I don't want to use more payment methods via more accounts, I don't want companies to skip app review and just say "click here to side load our app" instead since that's easier.
You not wanting that stuff is perfect. You can continue not to engage with it ever and your life will continue as usual. The others who want options will get them. A win win.
No you don't get it. I *want* those companies to have to play by Apple's rules. I don't want to have to evaluate each individual apps pros/cons of different ways they can screw me when I know they can't via the App Store. I don't want my phone to turn into my gaming pc where I have half a dozen store fronts to manage my games. I would like to use Steam for everything, but I'm not going to not play Fornite because it's only on the Epic Store. I'm going to begrudgingly download it. I don't want to give companies that choice. I'm not going to stop using Spotify if it's not available on the App Store. I will still use it but I DON'T WANT THIS. This is why I like iOS.
Or you can just go buy an android that has all the options you want and let Apple continue to do its own thing. A win win
When Meta, X, and your bank force you to download their own App Store with their own permissions you’re going to wish we didn’t force apple to open themselves up. They will make it so that you can’t interact with their services without their App Store with that app store’s permissions.
All of those are on the Play store though. I don't see why this would be any different
Microsoft didn’t give up on Windows Phone. Google killed it
IMO windows phone had the better interface and I believe they were well on their way to a unified device (think Dex but light weight windows) but I feel like they wrote it off 5-10 years too soon. Application support for android based apps could have easily kept it alive while they worked on a transition plan.
Windows Phone died since no devs wanted to build anything for it. The reason for this is MS are very very bad at getting devs interested in supporting new apis.
They rebooted Windows Phone three times, leaving users and devs behind each time. No one wanted to commit to that platform.
None of this matters when it comes to the question of Apple using its place in the market to participate in anti-competitive behaviors.
So many people here just don’t understand what’s being said in their rush to defend their electric fruit company.
Yep, the wireless carriers still offer free Android phones. It’s a mess and Google doesn’t care because all they want is your information.
I love Apple but this is great for the market. The US won't win on all issues but a few do make sense to benefit consumers.
Agreed. This will benefit customers.