Jump to content

Tile bashes Apple’s new AirTag as unfair competition. It will be asking Congress on Wednesday to take a closer look into Apple

edekb
Go to solution Solved by avg123,

Summary

Now that Apple’s lost item finder AirTag has officially been introduced, competitor Tile is going on record ahead of its testimony in front of Congress tomorrow about how it perceives Apple’s latest product. The company says it will be asking Congress on Wednesday to take a closer look into Apple’s business practices, and specifically its entry in this lost item tracking category.

 

Quotes

Quote

With AirTag, Apple is reproducing these capabilities, while also adding support for more precise ultra-wideband technology, integrating AirTag into its first-party “Find My” app, and leveraging its larger iPhone install base to help find missing items. This presents significant competition to Tile, which is not only expected to face off with Apple’s AirTag across Apple’s own devices, but also share a portion of its subscription revenues from in-app purchases with Apple thanks to App Store policies.

 

My thoughts

I think Tile has a point. I am always against Apple acting as a gate keeper between apps and their customer. Tile now not only has to compete with Apple but also has to give a part of their profit to Apple, their competitor as app store fees

 

Sources

Tile bashes Apple’s new AirTag as unfair competition | TechCrunch

44 minutes ago, Lord Bloobus said:

When the person you pay to be available on the store releases a copy of your product it's definitely grounds for a legal challenge.

So Amazon basics?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, poochyena said:

That IS complaining about having competition. What do you think competition is? When two companies produce and sell that exact same product in the exact same way? No, its when companies compete to make better products for cheaper. They are literally just mad that apple made a better product than them.

No its not, they're complaining about not having any alternative than giving Apple 30% of their revenue.

 

Its a literal dictionary definition of Anti Competitive Behaviour

Quote

Strategies designed to limit the degree of competition inside a market and reinforce the monopoly power of established businesses.

Apple are abusing their power of being the only ones able to offer the service for free on their own platform.

Main Rig:-

Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

Server:-

Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

No its not, they're complaining about not having any alternative than giving Apple 30% of their revenue.

They do. They can get off the platform and go to another or use their own platform.

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Apple are abusing their power of being the only ones able to offer the service for free on their own platform.

on their own platform.

Then you compete on another platform.
They are lucky they can even do so on apple's platform at all. Typically companies don't allow competitors on their own platform. Imagine if Amazon allowed people to buy Walmart products from Amazon.com. I would see that as more of a monopoly move than a competitive one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think it's completely filler, a desperate product to add to this presentation just to make up for the lack of other products.

 

I'm sure it'll work well and due to its low price will be likely sell decent though

Phone 1 (Daily Driver): Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G

Phone 2 (Work): Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G 256gb

Laptop 1 (Production): 16" MBP2019, i7, 5500M, 32GB DDR4, 2TB SSD

Laptop 2 (Gaming): Toshiba Qosmio X875, i7 3630QM, GTX 670M, 16GB DDR3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

TL;DR: I think Find My would technically fall under violation of the Sherman Act, but not in the way you would think. Read on.

 

I am by no means a lawyer, but there are three major laws in America that govern Antitrust, and the Sherman Act is probably what Tile is trying to invoke here.

 

Summarized by justice.gov, "The Sherman Act also makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct." This part is probably what they're going after.

 

Right. So, are the AirTags anticompetitive? To find out, lets look at their backend, Find My. Apple recently opened Find My to developers under the MFi program. Any person who wants to make a smart tracker just has to get their tracker certified by Apple, and by paying "small" royalties, you have access to the entire Find My system. What are the benefits you may ask? They're actually a lot. This is going to be really good for smaller companies who want to get into the smart tracker space and want compatibility with only Apple Devices (we will get onto this in a second), or bigger companies who just do not want to build out an entire network. For the consumer it's great because everything is all in one app and they don't have to worry about learning something new/using janky software. But it has its downsides.

 

For one, we don't know anything about it. Literally. Apple has developers sign a MASSIVE NDA to use Find My. We don't know all the nooks and crannies of this program like we know the App Store guidelines. But thanks to the Washington Post, we do have some description. Now this article is a year old, so Apple could've very easily changed this, but I cannot give them any benefit of the doubt when they refuse to post the details of their specification. One of the things they do can could be considered anticompetitive is disallowing customers from using other services with a Find My device. This can cause a situation where a Find My device that's activated for Find My and not a company's proprietary service cannot be used on an Android device until it's switched over to a proprietary service. There are also some soft locks behind Find My v. Competing devices. For instance, Find My can use and access location data whenever and wherever they need to. Competing services? They have to ask to use location data twice. Once to allow for "some time", and then again a week later to "always allow". Find My can use any chip/antenna in the iPhone to it's fullest capabilities since it's an integrated service. A competing service is limited to the device specifications that are allowed by the App Store guidelines. These are just general summaries from the article I linked, I would recommend reading it yourself for fuller details.

 

So now we have a situation where Apple's first party service is better than 3rd party services not because Apple "innovated" over them, but because they suppressed 3rd party services with "anticompetitive conduct" [i.e. neutering these services to fit in a list of artificial "guidelines" that Apple's services don't have to abide to]. Seems like Sherman's Act to me... For this not to be anticompetitive in my eyes, Apple would either A) have to allow tracking apps full use of the same sensors, chips, and antennas that the Find My service, and allow interoperability between services (So if a user wants to use Tile service on Android and Find My on iPhone, they can) can OR B) charge NO royalties for MFi devices under the Find My services and also port a version to Android.

 

But will this actually go anywhere? No. A) This law is like a billion years old. It needs a revamp that takes into account the technological innovations that have come since its inception such as, uh the airplane. And B) all of the administrations following Clinton have had a willingness to not actually do anything to pursue antitrust investigations. This may change with President Biden, but I wouldn't count on it. If they wanted something to actually happen, they should've went to the EU. And even then it's probably not going to change. It will be fun seeing them waffle to the House Judiciary Committee on CSPAN about how Apple is anticompetitive though. And by fun I mean a waste of taxpayer dollars.

 

I mean I think fixing the crippling infrastructure issues of our country (such as getting nationwide broadband, and before this entire reply gets taken down for political speech, I am talking generally and general issues, I am not referring to the infrastructure plan that President Biden has presented) takes up much more importance than if Tile can only locate my device 20m away and AirTags can do them at 21m...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Read the article please...

 

They're not complaining about Apple having a competing App, they're complaining about Apple expecting them to be able to compete against Apple when Apple include their service for free with every device while they have to pay Apple a 30% cut of any revenue they make.

 

I still don't understand how what Apple is doing is in the wrong.

 

Apple should be able to do whatever the fuck they want with their own products, ecosystems, userbase, etc

Phone 1 (Daily Driver): Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G

Phone 2 (Work): Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G 256gb

Laptop 1 (Production): 16" MBP2019, i7, 5500M, 32GB DDR4, 2TB SSD

Laptop 2 (Gaming): Toshiba Qosmio X875, i7 3630QM, GTX 670M, 16GB DDR3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Tile chooses to use Apple's App Store as a service to sell their own service. Apple has to make a cut from the App Store, they wouldn't host apps or services on there for free; they host it so hence have to pay off the expenses, and also make a bit of a profit too. Anyway, Tile doesn't need to make their services subscription based, Apple is doing the right thing for the consumer here by only making the user pay for the tags themselves, and not to actually find the tags.

 

If anything, Tile is being anti-competitive here by trying to get Apple looked into; Apple made a better product and Tile is worried about losing. I doubt this will go very far at all. Tile obviously wants some sort of block or limit on Apple to prevent too many potential customers from using the better product. Some of us like to call this innovation and improvement, something that means us consumers can expect better products and tech year on year.

 

Sure, Apple has anti-competitive practices, but this ain't one of them. And the US government has bigger fish to fry at the moment anyway.

Desktop - i5-9600KF @4.8GHz all core, MSI Z390-A PRO, 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz, MSI GTX 1660S OC 6GB, WD Blue 500GB M.2 SSD, Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM HDD

Laptop - ASUS ZenBook 14 with ScreenPad, i7-1165G7, Xe iGPU 96EU, 16GB Octa-Channel 4200MHz, MX450 2GB, 512GB SSD with 32GB Optane

 

Old Laptop 1 - HP Pavilion 15, A10-9600P, R5 iGPU, 8GB, R8 M445DX, 2TB HDD

Old Laptop 2 - HP Pavilion 15 TouchSmart, i3-3217U, Intel HD 4000, 4GB, 1TB HDD

 

iPad 2018 - 128GB

iPhone XR - 128GB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Did fitbit direct legislation against apple watches when the came out with heart rate monitors and fitness apps? That's the closest comparison I can think of...

 

Also, Tile is available on iOS and Android. So it's not like it's their only source of competition. 

image.png.d803e58cdb8dfeb454cd26275de5b81c.png

 

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna

Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them!

 RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 🦆 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021

Purple Build Post ---  Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS

CPU i7-4790k    Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI    RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz    GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3    Case Corsair 380T   

Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB    PSU Corsair CX750M    Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

Yeah it's not like any human being has ever lost anything. 🙄

Sure it may "help" some people not lose their stuff but I think most people greatly overestimate the reliability and accuracy of these types of trackers.  Maybe Apple has a good product, maybe it's just hype.  I tried a tracking system before and found it not worth it.  2 fobs I had both just stopped working within a couple months and they were never replaced and I havent lost anything. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Heliian said:

More unneeded solutions to problems that don't exist? 

Obviously stuff is where you left it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Read the article please...

 

They're not complaining about Apple having a competing App, they're complaining about Apple expecting them to be able to compete against Apple when Apple include their service for free with every device while they have to pay Apple a 30% cut of any revenue they make.

 

Them not wanting to give up their iOS app is their choice. As a consumer I know I'll choose an integrated experience over a separate app any time of the week. Ones less app on my phone. And if they don't want to pay the 30% cut, just use the app for tracking and only sell the hardware/subscription on your site...

“I like being alone. I have control over my own shit. Therefore, in order to win me over, your presence has to feel better than my solitude. You're not competing with another person, you are competing with my comfort zones.”  - portfolio - twitter - instagram - youtube

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Heliian said:

Sure it may "help" some people not lose their stuff but I think most people greatly overestimate the reliability and accuracy of these types of trackers.  Maybe Apple has a good product, maybe it's just hype.  I tried a tracking system before and found it not worth it.  2 fobs I had both just stopped working within a couple months and they were never replaced and I havent lost anything. 

You didn't say anything about accuracy and reliability. You literally said losing things is a problem that doesn't exist.

 

And with the U1 chip and a global network of iphones I expect this to be very accurate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Heliian said:

Sure it may "help" some people not lose their stuff but I think most people greatly overestimate the reliability and accuracy of these types of trackers.  Maybe Apple has a good product, maybe it's just hype.  I tried a tracking system before and found it not worth it.  2 fobs I had both just stopped working within a couple months and they were never replaced and I havent lost anything. 

I'd hold off the scathing criticism before we actually see these things in action, but with Apple's track record, these should be extremely accurate and I'm expecting good things. If the tracking system you used wasn't worth it, maybe these will float your boat!

Desktop - i5-9600KF @4.8GHz all core, MSI Z390-A PRO, 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz, MSI GTX 1660S OC 6GB, WD Blue 500GB M.2 SSD, Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM HDD

Laptop - ASUS ZenBook 14 with ScreenPad, i7-1165G7, Xe iGPU 96EU, 16GB Octa-Channel 4200MHz, MX450 2GB, 512GB SSD with 32GB Optane

 

Old Laptop 1 - HP Pavilion 15, A10-9600P, R5 iGPU, 8GB, R8 M445DX, 2TB HDD

Old Laptop 2 - HP Pavilion 15 TouchSmart, i3-3217U, Intel HD 4000, 4GB, 1TB HDD

 

iPad 2018 - 128GB

iPhone XR - 128GB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, dilpickle said:

First Rule of Free Capitalism: When someone makes a better product than you get Congress to pass a law. 😄

I don’t know if it’s actually better.  There is an argument that it’s actually worse in some situations.  The problem is if they’ve got a usable antitrust case here Amazon and Google is in massive trouble because the majority of their products violated this.

Not a pro, not even very good.  I’m just old and have time currently.  Assuming I know a lot about computers can be a mistake.

 

Life is like a bowl of chocolates: there are all these little crinkly paper cups everywhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

It seems that some missed the OP and the article, it isn't fair at all Tile has to pay a 30% fee, yet another reason third party app installation should be allowed in my opinion.

 

Tile doesn't need to block their features behind a subscription. Apple shouldn't have to host Tiles app for free. There's nothing stopping Tile from charging the subscription outside of the App Store and bypassing the 30% fee, as others have said. It ain't anti-competitive from Apple, but from Tile.

Desktop - i5-9600KF @4.8GHz all core, MSI Z390-A PRO, 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz, MSI GTX 1660S OC 6GB, WD Blue 500GB M.2 SSD, Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM HDD

Laptop - ASUS ZenBook 14 with ScreenPad, i7-1165G7, Xe iGPU 96EU, 16GB Octa-Channel 4200MHz, MX450 2GB, 512GB SSD with 32GB Optane

 

Old Laptop 1 - HP Pavilion 15, A10-9600P, R5 iGPU, 8GB, R8 M445DX, 2TB HDD

Old Laptop 2 - HP Pavilion 15 TouchSmart, i3-3217U, Intel HD 4000, 4GB, 1TB HDD

 

iPad 2018 - 128GB

iPhone XR - 128GB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, emosun said:

shouldn't tile be on android then?

It is.  You can use tile on android or iPhone.  Free app, pay for tiles

Not a pro, not even very good.  I’m just old and have time currently.  Assuming I know a lot about computers can be a mistake.

 

Life is like a bowl of chocolates: there are all these little crinkly paper cups everywhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Bombastinator said:

It is.  You can use tile on android or iPhone.  Free app, pay for tiles

alright well if tile is better then what are they worried about?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

Tile doesn't need to block their features behind a subscription. Apple shouldn't have to host Tiles app for free. There's nothing stopping Tile from charging the subscription outside of the App Store and bypassing the 30% fee, as others have said. It ain't anti-competitive from Apple, but from Tile.

There didn’t used to be a subscription fee.  You just bought the tiles and they lasted about a year and a half and wore out.  Might have happened since they went to a replacable battery system.

Not a pro, not even very good.  I’m just old and have time currently.  Assuming I know a lot about computers can be a mistake.

 

Life is like a bowl of chocolates: there are all these little crinkly paper cups everywhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, emosun said:

alright well if tile is better then what are they worried about?

My Data might be old.  I’ve only ever used the  non replacable battery versions 

Not a pro, not even very good.  I’m just old and have time currently.  Assuming I know a lot about computers can be a mistake.

 

Life is like a bowl of chocolates: there are all these little crinkly paper cups everywhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

There didn’t used to be a subscription fee.  You just bought the tiles and they lasted about a year and a half and wore out.  Might have happened since they went to a replacable battery system.

So now that Tile lets you replace the battery, they went the greedy route of charging a subscription, a Tile wouldn't be my first choice if i need a tracking tag, but I'm not sure if the Samsung or Amazon tags are sealed. IMO a throw away device is kinda worse but I hate being charged a subscription for something I already own.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There didn’t used to be a subscription fee.  You just bought the tiles and they lasted about a year and a half and wore out.  Might have happened since they went to a replacable battery system.

At least they're not selling products with a use by date now, but the subscription would put me off if I was to look into tags and saw Tile. Personally, I'd go for the better product, namely the one that works natively and accurately with my iPhone for free, and the one that I don't have to throw out and replace after a year.

 

Desktop - i5-9600KF @4.8GHz all core, MSI Z390-A PRO, 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz, MSI GTX 1660S OC 6GB, WD Blue 500GB M.2 SSD, Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM HDD

Laptop - ASUS ZenBook 14 with ScreenPad, i7-1165G7, Xe iGPU 96EU, 16GB Octa-Channel 4200MHz, MX450 2GB, 512GB SSD with 32GB Optane

 

Old Laptop 1 - HP Pavilion 15, A10-9600P, R5 iGPU, 8GB, R8 M445DX, 2TB HDD

Old Laptop 2 - HP Pavilion 15 TouchSmart, i3-3217U, Intel HD 4000, 4GB, 1TB HDD

 

iPad 2018 - 128GB

iPhone XR - 128GB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

Tile doesn't need to block their features behind a subscription.

They don't but at least the Tile works with either android or iphone. But I wouldn't buy a tile because I hate pay walls.

11 minutes ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

Apple shouldn't have to host Tiles app for free.

Apple literally copied the Tile, and they could drop store fees to 15% if they wanted to, a lot of other large companies get a lower store fee.

11 minutes ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

There's nothing stopping Tile from charging the subscription outside of the App Store and bypassing the 30% fee, as others have said. It ain't anti-competitive from Apple, but from Tile.

And get banned from the app store like others that tried to bypass the 30% cut? Also charging certain companies higher fees than others is anti-competitive.

1 hour ago, AMD A10-9600P said:

Some of us like to call this innovation and improvement, something that means us consumers can expect better products and tech year on year.

Apple took a thing that already exists, claims they made it better and invented item tracking tags.

Wow so innovative! /s

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

It seems that some missed the OP and the article, it isn't fair at all Tile has to pay a 30% fee, yet another reason third party app installation should be allowed in my opinion.

 

how is it "not fair"?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


×