US sues Apple for illegal monopoly over smartphones

And "no physical keyboards"

Wait is there actually proof of this? That's pretty damning.

It's probably safe to assume that's not the basis for the monopoly claim

If you own a phone, Apple impacts your life. Don't be naive.

OC isn't claiming that the shift in the industry is solely Apple's fault:

I don’t hate Apple but I do hate their influence

The reality is that what OC said is exactly what happened. Apple removed the headphone jack to coerce people into buying AirPods. Everyone else released their own wireless earbuds to compete, and also removes their headphone jacks for the same reason.

the 3.5mm rounded hole where you can insert your wired earphones, wired headphones, or stereo speakers

Actually it coincided with IPX rating for smartphones. The last headphone jack smartphones did not have water resistance, but the newer models did. People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.

My rugged phone is IP68 but it has Usb C connector and SIM/SD tray, so adding a headphone jack while having an IPX rating seems not impossible.

People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.

LOL imagine if capitalism actually worked this way...

Edit: People seem to be missing the point. I am aware that phones with 3.5mm jacks exist. I also just understand that capitalism and "free markets" don't actually work the way people seem to think they do. Maybe if the headphone jack was the most important feature to people, it would do better. Or maybe if it was an mp3 player and not a phone. Or maybe, simply, if it was manufactured by a brand people have heard of. Sometimes it's literally that simple.

But that isn't the case, is it?

Then why can they waterproof the usb plug-in but not the headphone jack?

But we had wireless headphones already. The choice to have both was nice. Not being able to charge and use headphones sucks. Also tiny e waste pods with tiny non recyclable batteries are terrible for the environment compared to a wired pair when thrown in a landfill.

No it's definitely Apple.

and the market still showed they wanted wireless

Or maybe people just need phones and there are only like 3 actual options.

Lina Kahn

She was pretty good on Planet Money : https://www.npr.org/2023/11/03/1197954506/lina-khan-interview-amazon-ftc-antitrust-paradox-monopoly

Yeah and hasn't she lost pretty much every case she's brought forward? She failed big fucking time with the Microsoft/Activision merger even though all the antitrust evidence was right in front of her nose. I'm glad the FTC is trying, because they're actually doing their job, but they're doing an awful job when it comes to actually being in court and proving their case.

People shit on Sony for trying to block the merger, but they absolutely were right for trying to block it and now games like starfield, the new Indiana Jones, and probably more in the future will be deliberately left off the PlayStation platform altogether. But that's all okay right? Because now you get call of duty on gamepass!!!!!!! RIGHT????!!?!???!????

Substack 🙄

There’s a lot of corporate competitive behavior that’s ok, when you’re one of many, that isn’t anymore when you dominate the market.

• Apple hasn’t dominated US cell phone market for decades yet
• the same behavior is perfectly legit for laptops, because Apple is a small player in that market
• Smartwatches are interesting - I don’t know the dynamics of that market but I don’t know anyone whose smartwatch is not Apple

Can't we just move past carrier managed messaging? I'd rather my telecom to just be dumb pipes and move everyone to Signal and similar.

All I want is RCS on iPhone

Me too, but isn’t this a chicken and egg situation?

• why should Apple add it if carriers don’t support and you haven’t go through Google if you want secure messaging?
• why should carriers support it if so many phones don’t, and why are they ceding security to Google?
• is not Google also a monopolist?
• is RCS even a useful standard if there’s not a consensus to make it ubiquitous?

Oh it's a pretty common Internet thing these days. Hopium and copium.

Biden appointed a bunch of pretty vehemently anti-monopoly people to power, this is just how long it actually takes them to conduct an investigation thorough enough to bring suit.

Awhile back a non tech person at work got hoodwinked into a sales pitch by a no name “AI” vendor. They, of course, invited a distribution list of all the IT and IT adjacent people to this pitch, thinking their ingenuity was going to transform our workplace and they were going to get accolades.

During the pitch, the sales guy (or CEO?) talked about Google getting surprised by Open AI, and that they rushed to build Bard, so they “could have their own ‘Me Too’ moment.” (With an inflection to indicate the Me Too comment was a reference.)

While I was watching people unmute, stay silent, then mute again, multiple group chats lit up at once.

(And the guy either didn’t understand LLM’s, or was hoping we really didn’t. It was peak marketing speak. He got crushed in the Q&A, ultimately revealing that the extent of his offering was to resell access to an established LLM vendor.)

they could get an extra 50 billion if they say “security for children, against terrorists”

If you can read the EULA, then you can learn how to skirt around it, and therefore, letting you read the EULA is against the spirit of the EULA, and should be banned.

They're certainly a much worse value for the money and intentionally constrained in ways that maximize the profits of Apple services by making it inconvenient or impossible to use alternatives, but the UI is substantially better than Android. Aside from that and Apple device interoperability benefits, nearly any Android phone is a better choice for most people.

The EU passed a massive, sweeping law. This is a federal lawsuit in front of an infamously conservative and pro-business Supreme Court.

Little will come of this.

The EU passed new laws to address new needs. The US is trying to see if they can provide consumer protection with existing consumer protection laws from the past.

Passing consumer protection laws is pretty hard when people don’t vote enough democrats into the senate and house. The GOP hates consumer protection regulation.

Because???

Good, don't sorry, bite more.

Can you be more contagious? Virulently so? Pandemic level? I need some of that good EU user privacy law plague in my life.

As soon as smartphones started becoming commonplace in like 2009 or so, I dropped Verizon because I wasn't going to pay $500 for a smartphone that couldn't have custom roms. Verizon can go fuck themselves.

A lot of carriers make you wait a certain period of time before unlocking. I'm hoping that I can get my phone unlocked so I can install graphene OS. I got a good deal on it so that's why I bought it locked, I'm going to degoogle it as much as possible until I can get the bootloader unlocked.

Except it wasnt successful since its still in the court, and Valve has counter sued for the lawsuit "abuse(ing) the legal process and interfer(ing) with Valve’s relationships with its customers"

EU decisions carry no legal weight in US, and I’m sure the laws are very different. Maybe it signals opportunity and regulator opinion but they’re completely independent decisions

I’ve wondered that in the past

Well, now you have your answers here in all detail, but it seems you didn't read them.

But I wanted to point out, Android is much, much more permissive in what peripherals and apps can do.

That's kinda true, but not what I was getting at. Android has restrictive background processing limits and the APIs around it keep getting more restrictive and the OEMs like Samsung keep ignoring the rules of how things should work and break your apps when you do it right anyway.. Ultimately it's incredibly difficult to write an app and guarantee background work.

Apple, is even worse on its restrictions of background work, but Apple owns the OS and and can bypass it all for their watch.

Apple will never get to bypass the fuckery you have to deal with on Android, only the Android OEMs get that.

I think the point though is you might be able to connect a Garmin to your iPhone but only Apple Watches get special access to certain APIs because "security".

Objectively superior? Superior user experience is entirely subjective, but that is the main selling point of almost everything Apple has done in the last 17 years

Apple has been more successful in the US, so by definition one could conclude they’ve done something better than competitors, whether it’s the products, timing, or something else about their business activities. People aren’t forced to buy iPhones any more than they are forced to buy Android.

Yes. A laundry list of reasons to not buy an Apple phone. I had no trouble finding plenty of great alternatives, what problem are you running into?

Not necessarily the best example, if you split the work up too much, you can end up with a bunch of unfinished projects, when everyone works together on specific items together you are more likely to get specific things done quickly and have them be more fully 'completed.'

Source: Actually have a family, actually do spring cleaning.

I once got an Apple Watch as a bonus at work. Had to sell it to a buddy because I couldn't use it without an iPhone. So dumb.

I completely disagree. As long as there are valid choices, an option to choose a walled garden has benefits. It’s only a problem when that’s your only realistic choice. In this case, as long as Android is common enough to be a valid choice and there are multiple Android manufacturers, then you really don’t see any of these problems.

If you don’t think there’s any innovation in phones, either

• phones are maturing. They are very powerful and do a lot: revolutionary change is much less likely now
• news fatigue. There are significant improvements in every model; I bet your self from ten years ago would be amazed. Also it’s silly to expect revolutionary change every year. Look less often

Or why battery life gets so bad after two or so years that most people are forced to buy a new one.

• iPhones seem to have better battery life. Come on over to the dark side
• I gave my two year old iPhone to my teen and battery health was still high eighties percent
• it’s really not that expensive to replace a battery. I mean, it might be in the latest models, but I historically pay Apple to do it after 2-3 years (so I can give it to my kid with full battery health) and it really doesn’t seem any more expensive after inflation than it’s been for decades. And there are cheaper places that can do it. While it’s a little frustrating that it’s difficult to do yourself, it’s just not put that bad

People don’t need to use an iPhone. A symptom of our declining society is expecting people or businesses to accommodate your personal interests instead of you making an adult decision.

To be fair, the unwalled garden of Android hasn't really come back with anything compelling in a decade, either. Just iterative hardware improvements.

Which is fine. The space has matured. There will be other frontiers.

But at least this might result in a decrease of friction between users with different platforms.

You don’t need to buy an iPhone, and if you don’t have one then this doesn’t affect you and you’re baby raging about nothing. If you do have one and are still mad, then perhaps evaluate how little self control you have over your purchases.

Android is an ecosystem made up of OEMs under the lead of Google, and all these OEMs have different business models. Google’s however, is an ad-based monopoly. Totally different business model. You referring to Android as a single entity shows how clueless you are about this topic.

Mobile is a different environment compared to desktop, so you’re comparing Apples to oranges.

You think you want this, but you really don’t. If Apple is gone then Android is all that exists and THAT IS A REAL MONOPOLY.