The US Department of Justice accuses Apple of having an illegal monopoly over smartphones

[Dracarris]

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Why use alternatives when the default app work just fine ?

Because the default apps don't work "just fine". They lack a ton of functionality in comparison to WhatsApp and the like.

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Our phone plans here are not dirt cheap $5 for unlimited call, texting and data.

Same here, far from that cheap. But text messaging has been unlimited, since well, a loong time.

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Which ruled out apps like Whatsapp.

Well it ruled out everything but text messaging, including iMessage and RCS. So what the heck is even your point. The only way for these folks was text messaging, which still works across all mobile platforms.

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Yes, he can receive texts. He can't reply though. But, with imessage, he can receive and reply with no issues, since it uses data. Just like RCS. Which Apple refuses to bridge. This makes it an issue.

So he cannot reply through a phone call? Or spend a few cents in case of sth super urgent that cannot be answered with a (VoIP) call?

And your whole point about data is horribly invalid. Everything but text messages use data. So whether someone uses iMessage, RCS, Whatsapp, or whatever to reply is totally irrelevant.

16 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

It most certainly is and is 100% being enabled by Apple's refusal to play nice with anybody.

It's 100% due to certain parts of the world refusing to use anything halfway modern for messaging and stubbornly insist on RCS or iMessage.

[TetraSky]

12 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Well it ruled out everything but text messaging, including iMessage and RCS. So what the heck is even your point. The only way for these folks was text messaging, which still works across all mobile platforms.

You're misinterpreting what I said there.

You can still send texts(SMS) and multimedia (MMS) over iMessage without data. Always could.

That was also about how things were years ago when every plans were a lot more expensive and we had very little data, before RCS even was a thing. It's about how things might change in the future now that data on mobile is more affordable, we might see a rise in use of third party apps like whatsapp for easier communication across devices, which does require an active internet connection to even work.

 

25 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

So he cannot reply through a phone call? Or spend a few cents in case of sth super urgent that cannot be answered with a (VoIP) call?

And your whole point about data is horribly invalid. Everything but text messages use data. So whether someone uses iMessage, RCS, Whatsapp, or whatever to reply is totally irrelevant.

Oh, you must not be from the same generation as me if you think calling is ever an option.

And yes, it is relevant. Because you can't use Whatsapp to contact someone who doesn't use it. You can't use RCS to contact someone who doesn't have internet access (it would revert back to SMS, after some time... if it doesn't bug out). You can't use imessage to contact someone who use an android phone without having texting in your phone plan.

What was my point exactly about data? All I said was that he can't reply with imessage since it uses data when you don't have texting enabled on your plan.

Which means it cannot communicate with other messaging services like Google's Message or Samsung's Message apps because even though RCS uses data too, Apple to Android communication through iMessages get sent via SMS. Not Data.

 

Honestly I'm not quite sure what you're fishing for here... All I said was my experience with a coworker who doesn't have texting in his phone plan and tried to explain how or why to you after you replied. If things work differently where you live, good for you. It does not in Canada and phone plans without texting, calling or data are still available for a lower price. Ideal for those who want to save money.

[cmndr]

13 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

nvidia most definitely has... amd gpus purely exist to camouflage this fact (the ceos of both companies are also closely related,  totally by accident,  of course!  )

They're distant cousins.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Su#:~:text=Su and Nvidia co-founder,of more than %241 billion.
"Su's maternal grandfather is the eldest brother of Huang's mother"

 

I can't tell you anything about the child of my grandfather's brother.

 

13 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

*bonus fun fact: amd also was purely created to "avoid" an intel monopoly... they just got the receipts handed to them and intel got no say in it lol (not that this necessarily is a bad thing, just funny and pretty unique)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD#:~:text=AMD was founded in 1969,main rival in the industry.

"AMD was founded in 1969 by Jerry Sanders and a group of other technology professionals. The company's early products were primarily memory chips and other components for computers. In 1975, AMD entered the microprocessor market, competing with Intel, its main rival in the industry. "

 

AMD as a company currently exists in part because of a second sourcing agreement with Intel because IBM wanted multiple suppliers for the CPUs they used. AMD was not only a "clone" of Intel and if anything they were more involved with cloning Fairchild parts in the early days since Intel was a no-name company at the time. Intel had around $2M in sales in 1969. Fairchild was over 10x bigger. 

 

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Dracarris said:

Here's two data points from the largest Swiss retailer for smartphones and laptops. If you have any other reliable data that back up your claim (in- or out-of-warranty), I'm eager to see it.

It's important to discern between Warranty and retail facing side repairs vs actual failure rates.  In the case of Apple, where they have a multitude of outlets where even if you bought it from lets say BestBuy you could have it quickly fixed/replaced at Apple under warranty.  Things like that would skew stats from a retailer, vs something like Samsung where there really aren't the stores where you can take it [except to the original retailer].

 

Note as well, the one you also specified would also apply to accidental breakage with warranty repair.

 

While not exactly the types of failures I am talking about, there are things like this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2018/07/23/apple-iphone-x-repair-flaw-broken-android-applecare/?sh=3ff85afc66f5

 

Here is one that has a bit more information:

https://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/iPhone_failure_rates_6_22_2010.pdf

25.6% failure rate, but 18.1% is attributed to accidental damage but 7.5% is attributed to hardware failure [But from 2010]

 

Overall it's hard to get data on the actual real world numbers, because Apple realistically again is the only one who has those true numbers.  Large organizations [not retailers] can get a good approximation of it if they have both Android and iPhones used...but I can't really pull up any recent studies on that.

 

1 hour ago, Dracarris said:

So he cannot reply through a phone call? Or spend a few cents in case of sth super urgent that cannot be answered with a (VoIP) call?

And your whole point about data is horribly invalid. Everything but text messages use data. So whether someone uses iMessage, RCS, Whatsapp, or whatever to reply is totally irrelevant.

If I travel to the US, I can receive a text message or use wifi.  If I were to reply using SMS I would be dinged ~$15 for the day.  Not everyone has Whatsapp etc...there are a few people in my contact list where I can only phone them conventionally or send a text message [because they were an iPhone user].

 

 

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Consumer protection is also about making sure the market itself has the freedom to offer you a compelling consumer choice. If the Apple ecosystem is unhealthy for many businesses then it is also unhealthy for consumers. You certainly cannot argue only Apple can or should be offering Apps and services on iPhones, or if that is to be allowed then laws should be passed baring all iPhones from being able to be used for banking, government websites, any and all commerce i.e. no buying stuff on Amazon with them.

We get into these situations because government regulators would rather wait until there is a monopoly to see what harm it does than proactively go "no that is a stupid idea to have less than 5 companies in a specific market"

 

In 2001, in Canada and the US we had several cellular networks to choose from. Now we have exactly 3 in both Canada and the US. If the laws ever change in Canada to allow competition from the US, all our cell networks would go out of business and be acquired by AT&T (East) and Verizon (West) overnight. Yet the same idiots in charge felt it was a good thing for AT&T to merge with Cingular, and T-mobile to merge with Sprint who previously merged with Nextel. Likewise in Canada, Rogers has gobbled up every competitor in the country. With barely any opposition.

 

It's as plain as day how harmful cellular network mergers are, especially when the same companies also offer you landline, television and wired line/fiber internet access. Even more damaging Bell (Canada), Rogers, AT&T, and Comcast also own significant media properties, which means in terms of vertical integration they can basically offer these channels for free on their own television service, but charge their competitors access to it, making those competitors unable to compete unless customers really do not care about television at all. And your internet access is subsidizing these stinkers of legacy media.

 

The reality is that communication networks need to be broken up so that they can NOT own both the pipe and the content that goes over the pipe. AT&T, Rogers, Comcast and Bell Canada need to be forced to sell their media properties, or forced to break their wireline and wireless services off from the rest of their business. Otherwise it will only get worse.

 

This is the reason why these companies don't offer free cell phones any more, or only offer the worst garbage android devices for free, because these devices they make the most profit on. They don't want to offer the iPhone, and only do because people want it. That's not an accident. These companies can't make people choose Android because they know it's inferior, and aren't helping by only offering the worst Android devices "for free".

 

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

If iPhones are going to continue to not be consumer and market unsafe then they should simply be excluded from "the market". That actually is how problems are dealt with. It can be as extreme as forcibly breaking up companies so different operating lines are no longer all within one company i.e. Apple Software and Apple Hardware being broken up. This is what happened to many ISP's/Telco's the world over when the full realization of how dangerous it is to allow one company to control the vast majority of the infrastructure and also the retail of services on top of it.

 

And you don't actually always get a choice, that's a fallacy of argument and reasoning. Lets just pick an example of corporate phone plans and deals with telco/ISP providers that may result in an iPhone being your only provided option. Or the same on the residential side, your best option to you is a phone plan that only comes with an iPhone otherwise you pay more for a plan without a phone or some other such choice that isn't as good. You still end up paying for that actual iPhone (it's not free, they never are) btw. You shouldn't have to pick the finically worse option because an included product results in consumer restrictions related to that product.

 

It's also entirely not about necessity, that is irrelevant to the issue. It doesn't matter how much something is a luxury choice, that has no baring over or within monopoly laws. Just because some products are expensive doesn't exclude those consumers/customers from equal and fair protection.

I worked for the Business department at one of the named companies above, Your business has a "Sponsorship" with a specific telecom, which means you as the employee are entitled to a discount, but only on specific hardware and plans offered by the telecom that are usually "off the menu" options that unsponsored customers do not get. "Company owned" equipment is a different thing where the company needs these devices, but they are assigned to staff, the staff do not get to do anything to these devices, they aren't their personal devices. So if a business customer calls in with a support issue and it necessitates replacing the phone, you send them out a new phone from a list of (usually only one) device. Where as a sponsorship might have discounts on certain devices and a few off-the-menu options requested by the business.

 

UPS, USPS and Fedex are special cases, where the business sponsorship requires the telecom to use their own courier to send devices out, and staff will flip out if you don't. This unfortunately has "reflection in the mirror" effect for these companies when devices go missing or damaged.

 

Verizon does not play ball with other telecoms (or at least that was the case when Cingular, Nextel and Sprint still existed.) All other north American telecoms actually work together to support business customers, so you will typically only get discounts through AT&T or Rogers in North America, but you can't be on Verizon.  

 

Again, these telecoms are so big now that they don't NEED to work together, but still do since no network actually has 100% coverage (Eg neither AT&T or T-Mobile have Alaska coverage, it's actually operated by GCI. Likewise most of the coverage in the midwest is actually none-of-the-above, just like in Canada where Sasktel is pretty much the only carrier.) 

 

Apple is not a monopoly in any position that matters that isn't easily defeated with "There's the Google Play store on Android", "there are Android alternatives", "There is the (Windows) PC", "There is Linux" etc. It requires some extreme stretches to create a "Monopoly", like twisting it into the idea that the "Apple iOS" platform is "the only wireless platform" when it clearly isn't.

 

But certain things, like Apple deciding what content is allowed on the device comes back to the "being a gatekeeper" argument, and that could easily be defeated if Apple was told that it can neither deny content or payments regardless of the content as long as the user has consented to that content being installed/downloaded to the device.

 

 

[Donut417]

5 hours ago, Dracarris said:

How are people in the US unable to use them, just how??!!

We do use third part messaging apps. I use Facebook Messenger and Discord regularly. But there's this thing called personal preference. People prefer texting.  Also some people just want something that works. texting just works.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

Apple is not a monopoly in any position that matters that isn't easily defeated with "There's the Google Play store on Android", "there are Android alternatives", "There is the (Windows) PC", "There is Linux" etc. It requires some extreme stretches to create a "Monopoly", like twisting it into the idea that the "Apple iOS" platform is "the only wireless platform" when it clearly isn't.

The legal definition of a monopoly isn't so literal as you and others treat it. It only requires an undue amount of influence that is above the bar of reasonable. Monopoly laws often don't require much more than 50%, it really does depend heavily on situation etc but the existence of Google etc doesn't at all negate the applicability of anti-trust laws.

 

Also no there is often never a defined "bar", the whole point is to hash it out in court and let the arguments be heard for and against then make a judgment based on that.

[williamcll]

On 3/22/2024 at 12:25 AM, manikyath said:

by these figures nvidia has a monopoly on GPU's, intel has a monopoly on CPU's, and lays has a monopoly on potato chips.

Yes and they should all be facing antitrust laws.

[wanderingfool2]

54 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Yes and they should all be facing antitrust laws.

Well they should face anti-trust IF they abuse it; which is effectively what Apple is doing.

 

The issue with nVidia and GPU's is that they aren't necessarily leveraging their power to stifle competition, at the moment there just isn't anyone close to being able to compete with them at least on the compute side of things.

 

Intel also has had antitrust stuff brought against them and Intel lost ($400 million fine).

[hishnash]

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Tile wasn't allowed using BT directional function in their App, yet Find My was.

There is no such thing as direction BT..  the HW cant do this. There is directional Ultra-Wideband but non of Tiles trackers even have UW support.

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

That would mean if Tile wanted to support that they would have to sign Apples new limited contract.

If Tile wanted to ship AirTags then they would be shipping airTags.. .Not sure why apple (or any company) be forced to white label its products for a competitor to ship..   The U1 precision finding APIs have been there in iOS since apple shipped AirTags, tile was free to find a supplier of Ultra Wideband transmitters and build a platform on this but that would require them to go out and buy these parts from a supplier (yes you can buy these chips). 

[saltycaramel]

Listening to WAN right now, I have a few questions:

 

1) if I wanted to buy 10 million screwdrivers from Linus, would I be able to bargain for a quantity discount from him just like Netflix haggled for a quantity discount with Apple? Are quantity discounts illegal? And how can he compare actively breaking compatibility via a RFID chip to passively not putting in the extra work (and continued support, forever and ever) to add Android support to Apple accesories? Should the government force companies to "put in the extra work and continued support till the end of times" for something that doesn't make business sense to them? 

 

2) close your eyes and think about how many accessories, peripherals, SSDs, gamepads, etc. you've come across in your tech life that could only be firmware updated on Windows (or via their gaming console for gamepads) and not on Linux/macOS. Just like the Airpods firmware can only be updated on the OS that is used by the vast majority of their users. (iPhone users worldwide are 1.2B, Airpods users worldwide are in the ballpark of 250M, a subset of the iPhone population, I have a feeling the overlap may be pretty high, maybe even in the 90%...whereas Beats sales may tell another story, but those can be updated on Android)

 

3) should the government force Floatplane to put in the extra work to support macOS natively (not via iPadOS app compatibility) or release a visionOS app? Should the government force Meta to finally release a native iPadOS app for Whatsapp? 

 

4) I'm gonna go full whataboutism: what about all the proprietary accessories ever that would only work with their respective same-brand products? Is the Sonos ecosystem completely illegal? Could the Wii U gamepad/tablet be connected to a PS3? What about some cameras and their proprietary accessories? What about some car accessories, can I install them on cars from other brands? Can I connect a Sony PSVR2 headset to macOS? (well actually that may happen, but only because they're having weak sales, not because the government is forcing them). So why can't the Apple Watch exist as an iPhone-only accessory? 

 

What I'm trying to say is that it's not that these business practices are unheard of or egregiously bad (Linus getting all triggered about them notwithstanding, "this is sPiTeFuL") per se, for the most part.

 

The framing should be more: Apple is TOO BIG to do this kind of stuff. A "gatekeeper", as the EU calls these kind of companies.

 

But Apple wasn't "TOO BIG" when all of this started.

So, of course they will keep doing what they used to do until someone forces them not to, they will defend their case, they will comply kicking and screaming all the way. Anybody here happily pays more taxes than they're supposed to? 

[saltycaramel]

43 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

The framing should be more: Apple is TOO BIG to do this kind of stuff.

 

But Apple wasn't "TOO BIG" when all of this started.

A funny thing about this, gotta love the perception dissonance about how big Apple actually is.

 

1) People in the US: almost everybody uses Apple, blue bubbles are big deal, etc.

 

2) People outside the US: a minority of people uses Apple, hardly anybody I know

 

3) Some PC nerd circles (even like 3/4 of this forum): who even uses Apple’s overpriced products? 

 

4) US DOJ: APPLE IS A MONOPOLY!

 

I guess the definition of a monopoly from 130 years ago may use some adjustment for the globalized world and truly global companies.

 

Imagine, as an extreme thought experiment, if Apple had a 70% share in the US but a 1% share (vs 99% Android) in every other country in the world. Could it be considered a monopoly? Wouldn’t it be at high risk of being crushed by the 99% Android competition outside the US (and possibly pushing to enter the US)?

 

I get that the US DOJ is meant to regulate the US market, but these are global companies we’re talking about. 

[porina]

37 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

I'm gonna go full whataboutism: what about all the proprietary accessories ever that would only work with their respective same-brand products?

The problems only start if a dominant position is used to gain an advantage unfairly. Those inter-compatibility things listed are small scale or not dominant, so they would not fall under this.

 

43 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

But Apple wasn't "TOO BIG" when all of this started.

So, of course they will keep doing what they used to do until someone forces them not to, they will defend their case, they will comply kicking and screaming all the way. 

This is the point I guess. Apple today is not Apple from 20 years ago, when the iPod started making Apple relevant again. Imagine if Windows software could only be delivered by MS Store. Should we just accept that position now on the iPhone?

[mr moose]

22 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

That still doesn't take choice away from consumers, which is what I'm talking about. You as a consumer have the choice to not buy an iPhone if you don't want that. Idk why people act like having an iPhone is a necessity.

It does though. When developers have to incur a 30% fee for selling to you then they increase the cost by 30%,  that directly effects the consumer.  When developers have limits placed on how and what their app can do, then that totally effects the product consumers use.

 

Consumers are only half the market, people who make and sell products are the other half.  You can not put limitations and costs onto one without it effecting the other.    This is a fact born out in ever other market place and industry.  

[saltycaramel]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

Imagine if Windows software could only be delivered by MS Store. Should we just accept that position now on the iPhone?

Probably not (and that’s what’s already happening in Europe), but there’s a “but”.

 

The iPhone AppStore is a success, growth and innovation story for the ages.

 

It’s probably the most successful repository for paid software of all times, it sparked the mobile software revolution and created a whole economy, it allowed regular people to safely install a wide variety of programs (as we would call them before calling them “apps” came in fashion), and spend a lot of money (some of it going to Apple, most of it to 3rd party developers) in a secure environment.
 

So, the narrative (from the DOJ, from the EU, from Spotify, etc.) positing that that particular business practice stifled innovation gives me pause. And we can’t apples-to-apples compare it to the history of other app stores. 

[hishnash]

17 minutes ago, porina said:

Imagine if Windows software could only be delivered by MS Store. Should we just accept that position now on the iPhone?

Should we accept that for the Xbox store?  ... after all it is just a PC running a custom build of windows.. how differnt is it to those Windows S devices that were MS store only. 

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

Should the government force companies to "put in the extra work and continued support till the end of times" for something that doesn't make business sense to them?

The real odd ball here is when gov/regulators want companies to provide services that cost them money to make and run for free on companitores devices to users that have never paid them anything.   

[porina]

6 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

So, the narrative (from the DOJ, from the EU, from Spotify, etc.) positing that that particular business practice stifled innovation gives me pause. And we can’t apples-to-apples compare it to the history of other app stores. 

It may have been appropriate during growth phase. The question being asked is does that model work in the best interests of its users today?

 

1 minute ago, hishnash said:

Should we accept that for the Xbox store?  ... after all it is just a PC running a custom build of windows.. how differnt is it to those Windows S devices that were MS store only. 

There's the dominant position part. Xbox is not the dominant current gen console platform. Back to the phones, a question is Apple so dominant over Android? I do think that is a weakness in the argument, but IANAL and I will be missing nuances from a legal perspective.

[hishnash]

20 minutes ago, porina said:

I do think that is a weakness in the argument, but IANAL and I will be missing nuances from a legal perspective.

Well the DOJ want to define the market as `high end smart phones`.. if they get away with price bracketing the market then they are massively increasing the power of the monopoly laws as that will let them target so many more companies..  In many markets there is a single comampnay that sells all of the highest price options in the market, even if across the total makers they have a small % of sales...   I would be very surprised if that definition of market holds. 

[Kisai]

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

The legal definition of a monopoly isn't so literal as you and others treat it. It only requires an undue amount of influence that is above the bar of reasonable. Monopoly laws often don't require much more than 50%, it really does depend heavily on situation etc but the existence of Google etc doesn't at all negate the applicability of anti-trust laws.

 

Also no there is often never a defined "bar", the whole point is to hash it out in court and let the arguments be heard for and against then make a judgment based on that.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline

Quote

For many years, Apple has built a dominant iPhone platform and ecosystem that has driven the company’s astronomical valuation. At the same time, it has long understood that disruptive technologies and innovative apps, products, and services threatened that dominance by making users less reliant on the iPhone or making it easier to switch to a non-Apple smartphone. Rather than respond to competitive threats by offering lower smartphone prices to consumers or better monetization for developers, Apple would meet competitive threats by imposing a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions in its App Store guidelines and developer agreements that would allow Apple to extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives. It has deployed this playbook across many technologies, products, and services, including super apps, text messaging, smartwatches, and digital wallets, among many others.

 

Nothing here says that Apple did anything wrong that AT&T, Oracle, Cisco, Dell, or even IBM hasn't done.

 

What they described here is vertical integration, if they go after Apple's vertical integration, they should go after everyones.

 

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

What they described here is vertical integration, if they go after Apple's vertical integration, they should go after everyones.

Well there is always a first person on the chopping block and its Apple. The DOJ doesnt have a good track record when it comes to enforcing anti trust cases as far as I can remember. So they are testing the waters with Apple. If successful they might go after the companies you have mentioned and more. OR this could just be a political stunt by the current administration to gain voters. Only time will tell.

 

4 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

I get that the US DOJ is meant to regulate the US market, but these are global companies we’re talking about. 

Yes, but A) Apple is an American company. B) Countries have full power to enforce laws within their borders and people/ companies are required to follow such laws.

 

4 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

1) People in the US: almost everybody uses Apple, blue bubbles are big deal, et

As a American I can tell you the color of the bubble means jack shit to me. I dont really distinguish between iMessage and Texting, both provide me with text responses. Granted iMessage might offer more features but I probably dont use any of those.

 

The big reason I think people in the US use Apple is because they like the product and features. I mean I can get a messages and calls on my Macbook. They have 5+ years worth of support on their devices. That being said, things are not all sunshine and rainbows in the Apple world. It all comes down to personal preference.

[wanderingfool2]

8 hours ago, hishnash said:

There is no such thing as direction BT..  the HW cant do this. There is directional Ultra-Wideband but non of Tiles trackers even have UW support.

It's easier to say than ultra wideband and IF you attempted to read what I said you would have noticed I was talking about ultra-wideband.  So what, I called it BT instead of ultra-wideband...if you had actually read you would have realized I what I was referring to.

 

Apple didn't really give access to Tile to the chips that allow for directional tracking; while they developed their own Tile competitor.  Despite Tile telling Apple they were developing it AND requesting access to it.  Point blank one cannot argue that Apple didn't use their position to greater their position.

 

Tile eventually ended up scrapping the device...most likely because Apple kept denying them access until the airtags got to the point where they couldn't compete on Apple devices.  Again if you use the Find My you effectively are locked out of using your own app to track which means you lose out on things like this.

 

[saltycaramel]

34 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Yes, but A) Apple is an American company. B) Countries have full power to enforce laws within their borders and people/ companies are required to follow such laws.

Sure, what I meant is that it’s not completely “fair” (or representative of reality) to call Apple a “monopoly” when 6/7 of the world population uses Android. Both Apple and Apple’s competitors are global companies. They live or die because of global supply chains, R&D centers all over the world, brilliant minds from all over the world developing the software and hardware, etc. They’re exposed to global competitive threats. 

 

But the DOJ only looks at the US market and based on that calls Apple a “monopoly”. They even came up with the “performance smartphones” sub-category to make the iPhone look even more monopolistic.

 

Meanwhile in China, the minute Huawei was back in the premium smartphones game, it started eating Apple’s lunch left and right. Looks to me the iPhone is exposed to competitive threats aplenty.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

ut the DOJ looks just at the US market and calls Apple a “monopoly”.

The DOJ only has jurisdiction in the US's borders. They are not going to look at the Globalness of Apple because that doesn't mean jack shit to them. There job is to ensure the laws of the United States are being followed within the borders of the United States. The DOJ doesn't give a shit what Huawei is doing in China because the DOJ doesn't have power in China.

 

If the DOJ feels that Apple is a monopoly then they have the legal right and by law are required to act. Also at the end of the day Apple will get its day in court. To be honest, the DOJ has a shit track record with monopoly cases. In my OPINION this is a political ploy at most. Its an election year. Each side has to do things to get votes.

 

The last time I recall Anti Trust laws in the US actually working on a major company was in the 1980's when the Ma Bell was broken up. So again I dont really think Apple has much to worry about.

 

[saltycaramel]

28 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The DOJ only has jurisdiction in the US's borders. They are not going to look at the Globalness of Apple because that doesn't mean jack shit to them. There job is to ensure the laws of the United States are being followed within the borders of the United States. The DOJ doesn't give a shit what Huawei is doing in China because the DOJ doesn't have power in China.

Again, sure. Rightfully so.

 

BUT.

This is a globalized world and some of these antitrust laws have their origin in another era. 
Nothing groundbreaking in thinking antitrust law should keep up with the times. 
 

And by the way sometimes the US (and other countries) DO take into account stuff happening outside their borders when it comes to sanctioning a company or entity or individual. Because, again, we live in a globalized world.

 

Also, as you mentioned there’s always a political dimension to these kind of endeavours. The law is the law, but enforcement is also about politics. And politics is all-encompassing, all kinds of considerations go into it.