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US Escalates Apple Probe, Looks To Involve Antitrust Chief (wsj.com) 22

The Justice Department has ramped up work in recent months on drafting a potential antitrust complaint against Apple, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The investigation into whether Apple has monopoly power that it abuses began in 2019, but enforcers have escalated their efforts in recent months, with more litigators now assigned to the case and new requests for documents and consultations with companies involved, the people said. The Justice Department's investigation deals in part with Apple's policies governing mobile third-party software on its devices, which has been the focus of much of the criticism targeting Apple's competitive practices. The department is also looking at whether Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, operates in an anticompetitive way by favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the people said.
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US Escalates Apple Probe, Looks To Involve Antitrust Chief

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  • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @02:29PM (#63296195) Homepage

    Nothing will fundamentally change. Windows still comes bundled with its own mediocre browser, and most PCs still come bundled with windows. Also, Windows has ads now and bloatware such as Candy Crush gets downloaded automatically whether you want it or not. Arguably, the user experience has gotten worse.

    Ultimately, this antitrust action is just going to just cost Apple some money, and then it's back to business as usual.

    • My real fear is they will do some half-assed attempt to force Apple to allow 3rd party apps on, and customers will suffer. The status quo ensures that most apps on their store are safe and well contained, a few get through but Apple has the ability to cut them down when found. Android is kind of a mess, between shitware installed before users even pick up the phone, to various kinds of shady apps both in the store and elsewhere. Google doesn't care much as long as their anayltics are involved, which most cr

    • Ultimately, this antitrust action is just going to just cost Apple some money, and then it's back to business as usual.

      TL; DR - Pay To Play. And if you're still wondering which is better...Capitalism costs money. Socialism costs lives.

    • Yup. And the case for Apple being a monopoly isn’t nearly as strong as for MS. MS did, and still does, absolutely dominate the desktop computer ecosystem. Other alternatives? 5% use macos, and there’s always Linux hahahah I couldn’t keep a straight face while saying that.

      Meanwhile, Apple has barely cracked the 50% mark on cellphones, and that’s in the US. In huge parts of the world, Apple phones are just too expensive. No matter how you look at it, Apple simply isn’t a mon
      • by ihxo ( 16767 )

        Also being a monopoly was not what got microsoft into trouble. It's how they leveraged that monopoly to force OEMs to NOT bundle netscape with the computer that causes problem. So they might not really have a case against apple here, but we'll see.

      • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        Why does being a monopoly (or not) matter?
        • Why does being a monopoly (or not) matter?

          In the US, anti-trust law is about abusing the public trust to harm consumers. This concept of harm is not well defined, so is open to interpretation and argument.

          A company with a monopoly on a product or service is held to a higher standard of trust than one which has many competitors.

          If a company is the only (or main) supplier of a product or service, then they are expected to act in the best interest of their customers, even if this precludes them from maximizing their own benefit.

          Apple does not have a m

          • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

            They can be sanctioned for actions which result in harm to the consumer market.

            Exactly. Even though Apple isn't a Monopoly, it is the richest company on the planet value at over 2 TRILLION. So they could use that wealth to influence markets in an anticompetitive (antitrust) way.

  • by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @03:01PM (#63296295)

    Let the browsers use their own rendering engines. That's the big one. Otherwise, I'm relatively happy in my garden. And it's reinforced every time I work with the competition.

    I have probably 50 close relatives with iPhones, and three that have Android devices. For my whole life I've been the technical support for my extended family - guess which three folks are responsible for almost all problems I field about phones? Most recently it was an application that was "Missing Google Play Services", which led me down a horrible rabbit hole of dependencies and library downloads until I simply gave up.

    The days of technical evangelism are behind me. Silent competence is the desired behaviour of my devices. If that means a gatekeeping overlord, so long as they do their job, I'm okay with it.

    • Welcome to adulthood, where people don’t want to spend dozens of hours per week on the command-line and/or dealing with 85 levels of OS settings. We have little patience for techno-anarchist-idealist types because we’re busy doing real shizzle that keeps real-world stuff moving forward.

      Basic apple stuff isn’t even all that expensive any more. You can get a refurb-basically-new iPhone 12 for about $300 that blows most androids entirely out of the water.
    • by david.emery ( 127135 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @04:11PM (#63296513)

      A friend (an IA expert) and I were discussing this. The advantages for a single rendering engine include:
      (a) some consistent look-and-feel performed by the rendering engine
      (b) a single codebase to secure
      (c) and personally at least, of all the software vendors, I trust Apple the most with respect to secure code (YMMV, of course.)

      disadvantages
      (a) a bug in the engine exists in all the using applications
      (b) potential limits on "innovation"
      (c) the nebulous "software freedom" argument for those who do their own development

      So again personally, those advantages strongly outweigh the disadvantages.

      I'm interested in other views on technical advantages/disadvantages (that are not based on 'platform religion')

      • My objection is mostly about disadvantage (a). I've experienced it. Doesn't have to be a bug, just something that an engine doesn't support yet. I would have liked to have switched browsers to see if I could get around it. Otherwise, I mostly agree.

      • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        Why does Apple allow stuff like Google Maps or Spotify? Shouldn't Apple Maps and Apple Music be enough? After all, it'd provide a consistent look and feel across map/music apps, and a single codebase to secure.
    • Until recently, I've used Android exclusively. I never had issues. I've had issues on IOS...pretty minor, so easy to deal with, but never had an issue among about 8 Samsung or Google (Nexus/Pixel) phones. Android works smoothly and IMHO, the interface is slightly better....not enough to really matter. However, things like Bluetooth and WiFi management are tedious on ios, and require less taps in Android to switch a Bluetooth device or WiFi network...not a huge deal, but when I go back into Android, I al
      • Well, quiet competence is what I want from my device. You are getting that from Android, and more power to you. It makes perfect sense for you to keep with it.

        I have a few android devices lying around which failed the "retiree relative" test. I'm hoping to find a use for them. Seems like a shame to waste hardware like that...

    • by fwad ( 94117 )

      Having used both - they are just phones. The interface is a bit different but they both make phone calls, receive SMS'es and have a bunch of apps I can install. I've never had to download separate libraries for either.

      Apart from a few companies that want to build custom apps than offer no better experience than a website and can't be bothered to use a cross platform build system to write them I've never had any issues.

      As for needing tech support for a phone .... other than sharing names of useful apps -

  • Printer ink (Score:4, Informative)

    by david.emery ( 127135 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @03:22PM (#63296363)

    If Congress wants to investigate a truly obnoxious part of tech that has direct costs for consumers, it should look at printer ink/cartridges. My Lexmark refuses to recognize a non-Lexmark cartridge. (What's really pissing me off is the Magenta cartridge ran out, but I can't even print in B&W, which is all I want to do with this printer.)

    The arguments for 'app store is harmful to consumers' (versus 'harmful to app developers') is in my view tenuous. While the cost of printer cartridges and the vendor monopolies for same are truly egregious.

  • My local grocery store promotes their house brand and CVS promotes their house brand. Both do so at the expense of competitors’ products. Is that now an antitrust violation??

  • The iPhone is Apple's product. They invented it, make it, and write/maintain the OS. Whether or not I like it, it seems to me that they have every right to set whatever rules they want for 3rd party publishers, and that they can't be a monopoly because they are not the only maker of smartphones.
  • This tells me which way Apple's political donations go. No surprise there. It is about time. Yes, ultimately it is meaningless, but simply payback for the apple fanbois crowing about the MS antitrust suit for decades afterward.

MS-DOS must die!

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