DOJ Blames Apple For Failure of Amazon Fire Phone, Windows Phone and HTC 247
DOJ, in the court filing (PDF): Many prominent, well-financed companies have tried and failed to successfully enter the relevant markets because of these entry barriers. Past failures include Amazon (which released its Fire mobile phone in 2014 but could not profitably sustain its business and exited the following year); Microsoft (which discontinued its mobile business in 2017); HTC (which exited the market by selling its smartphone business to Google in September 2017); and LG (which exited the smartphone market in 2021). Today, only Samsung and Google remain as meaningful competitors in the U.S. performance smartphone market. Barriers are so high that Google is a distant third to Apple and Samsung despite the fact that Google controls development of the Android operating system.
Oh, I see (Score:5, Interesting)
Alternately "Apple IPhone and associated walled garden is better than various shit competitors"
How unfair of Apple to be a superior solution that people want, rather than random commodity crap that people do not want. We have to get the government to punish them, now!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Or, smartphones are really just annoying business tools, and the market has only been kept alive by the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (TM). Break that spell and everyone will go back to proper landlines.
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You're right that they're not good business tools, but Jobs and his teams were ridiculously focused on consumers-- the end purchasers.
I'm not an Apple fanboi, and far from it, but a lot of dogged work produced a clear and early market leader that sustained its leadership-- if by monopolizing its ecosystem.
Much as I'd like to see Apple open up, I believe the DoJ (in this segment) has a very flawed argument. Google isn't a hardware company, for one. Microsoft doesn't know hardware (Balmer totally blew the Nok
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I used to buy a new android phone every 12-18 months, for the better part of a decade - it'd last that long before it broke, or got slow. They weren't necessarily high end models, but they did cost anywhere from $300-500 each generally - HTC, OnePlus, Samsung, etc.
Then I bought an iPhone (Xs) and it's lasted me for about 6 years now. It's a horrible, crippled device (in terms of software capabilities is concerned), but it works consistently and hasn't gotten worse. It's more robust than the Androids were.
I
Re: Oh, I see (Score:3)
â¦there is literally an app called Files on your phone that is a file manager with all kinds of local and cloud storage integrations.
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2)
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Biggest pet peeve. Apple is a master at hiding useful features somewhere where no one will find them.
I think what you meant to say was "Thanks".
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Yeah, I have trouble seeing how the other companies failing to compete shows that Apple did something wrong. Now if Apple had put pressure on app developers to not support competing platforms, then that would be different, but there's nothing like that in the summary, and I'm too lazy to look up anything more (at least I'm being honest about it).
The only obvious monopolistic issue with the iPhone that I'm aware of is their app store. Not allowing competing stores while charging excessive commissions certa
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If there were real competition with multiple app stores, I would guess that commissions would be driven down from 30% to 10%
Why? That hasn't happened on Android (Google also charges 30%), which has multiple app stores. Hasn't happened on Steam, who charges 30%, even though there are nearly infinite PC game app stores.
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If there were real competition with multiple app stores, I would guess that commissions would be driven down from 30% to 10%
Why? That hasn't happened on Android (Google also charges 30%), which has multiple app stores. Hasn't happened on Steam, who charges 30%, even though there are nearly infinite PC game app stores.
Exactly.
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Hopefully the rest of the world will too
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typical shill
everyone is bad but apple
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However, for someone with a commanding market presence, anticompetitive behavior is strictly illegal via the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts.
This is a fact of life. They have been laxly enforced since US v Microsoft, but it's time to start enforcing these statutes again.
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Having a superior product is fine.
However, for someone with a commanding market presence, anticompetitive behavior is strictly illegal via the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts.
This is a fact of life. They have been laxly enforced since US v Microsoft, but it's time to start enforcing these statutes again.
Apple caused the failure of Amazon FirePhone?!?
Seriously?
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However, Apple's anticompetitive behavior is well documented.
When bringing any suit, you collect a bunch of theories and claims supported to various degrees by evidence, and you throw it at the defendant like spaghetti.
I wouldn't stress too much over the claim that they killed the Amazon trash phone.
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2)
Re:Oh, I see (Score:4, Informative)
What killed it was the nature of the market- there's no room for a startup that isn't invested in one of the ecosystems, not when the competing marketplaces- which are an integral part of the phone you purchase- contain millions of applications.
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Na, Windows Phone was a fine product. But it wasn't really killed either.
What killed it was the nature of the market- there's no room for a startup that isn't invested in one of the ecosystems, not when the competing marketplaces- which are an integral part of the phone you purchase- contain millions of applications.
But the DOJ says its failure was Apple's Fault!
Better call them and set them straight.
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You throw what you've got against the wall, and you see what sticks.
Apple's defense will use similarly stupid logic mixed with solid reasoning to see what sticks on their side.
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That's how lawsuits work.
You throw what you've got against the wall, and you see what sticks.
Apple's defense will use similarly stupid logic mixed with solid reasoning to see what sticks on their side.
Sorry, no.
I know that Trump's Lawyers have made everybody think that's normal behavior; however, there is this little thing called The Code of Professional Conduct For Attorneys.
Check out Paragraphs 10 through 12 of the Preamble. It sets the tone for why Attorneys aren't just supposed to "See what sticks". Such language as:
"The legal profession is largely self-governing. Although other professions also have been granted powers of self-government, the legal profession is unique in this respect because of the
Re:Oh, I see (Score:5, Insightful)
Bipolar slashdot is off it's meds again...
On Thursday they're bashing capitalism and asking for socialism by Friday they're worshipping superior capitalists and telling government to back off.
It is a tenet of Capitalism to have MANY producers and MANY consumers. If this is NOT the case then GOVERNMENT (yes government) needs to get involved to break up companies and restore competition.
Capitalism requires many producers and consumers.
Capitalism requires government intervention to restore balance.
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You're confusing the Free Market with Capitalism. It's right in the names, Capitalism is using capital to produce more capital and includes trying to screw the Free Market as ideally the Capitalist gets a monopoly. A Free Market serves the people by having things like competition and that competition can involve Capitalists and others such as Socialists. Think Capitalist banks competing with Socialist Credit Unions. Can't get more Socialist then a Credit Union, owned by its users with each having a vote.
You
Re:Oh, I see (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2, Interesting)
"The reality is Apple makes the Toyota Camry of phones. It does what you need a smart phone to do and does so for a very long time without issues"
That's a great comparison, better even than you know. Automotive enthusiasts know that Toyota makes a very reliable vehicle which costs more than e.g. a Nissan. But they also know that the Nissan handles better, and provides at least as much value for money unless you buy one with crappy options, i.e. a CVT.
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2)
To me the Apple phones are unusable, it's an UI that might work in a toy for stoned kids.
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You need a computer that is also a phone.
iPhone users want a phone that is also a computer.
Might I suggest the more globally popular alternative for you? Android.
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You need a computer that is also a phone.
iPhone users want a phone that is also a computer.
Might I suggest the more globally popular alternative for you? Android.
I've always been amazed that people expect toys to perform the same function as real computers. And yes, Android or iOS are expensive toys.
First off, as an Embedded Developer (and iPhone Owner) myself, I'm all with you on the Subject of "Phones are Appliances".
However, with an SoC that is at least as Powerful as what is in an M1 MacBook Air (and Mac mini and iMac), I seriously think the Hardware (and the underpinnings of the OS) is far past the "Toy" stage.
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"for some reason."
Advertising, the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue are the best mind-control experts on the planet. Hell, most Americans aren't even aware that they live in the most propagandized society in the world, if you ask them they'll tell you that their government doesn't even use propaganda. That's how really sad it is here. If there were real money in chia pets or swallowing goldfish they'd be the next new "thing".
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Okay but why doesn't the advertising work in Europe. We had those Apple ads here too.
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"for some reason."
Advertising, the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue are the best mind-control experts on the planet. Hell, most Americans aren't even aware that they live in the most propagandized society in the world, if you ask them they'll tell you that their government doesn't even use propaganda. That's how really sad it is here. If there were real money in chia pets or swallowing goldfish they'd be the next new "thing".
Then why did Apple's stock price drop by almost 4% on news of the DOJ's bullshit "Complaint"?
If Wall Street was all Googly-Eyed for Apple, the stock price would have not budged, or possibly even gone UP!
Re: Oh, I see (Score:3, Interesting)
What makes you claim it's bullshit? Apparently they've built a pretty good case:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/... [theverge.com]
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What makes you claim it's bullshit? Apparently they've built a pretty good case:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/... [theverge.com]
And AppleInsider thinks they don't. In fact, AI says Apple has already addressed, or has solid plans to address, most, if not all, of the DOJ's "Claims", such as that ridiculous Hater-language-filled tirade against "Green Bubbles":
https://appleinsider.com/artic... [appleinsider.com]
And apparently, several other sources think the DOJ be Trippin', Mr. Cherry-Picker!
As I said: Bullshit.
https://appleinsider.com/artic... [appleinsider.com]
So now what?
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> Advertising, the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue
You don't think Motorola has Madison Avenue advertising? Or Microsoft? Or LG? Or Sony? Or Nokia? Or Blackberry?
They all have advertizing, that's not the reason.
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Put into context, that's 4 million fucking corpses in the US, alone.
Fortunately, mitigations happened, and we only had about a million.
It's a shame you survived, you stupid fucking twit. Fortunately, the virus did thin out your numbers measurably.
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Which mitigations reduced the death toll? By how much each?
A url would be nice.
Asking for a friend.
Re:Oh, I see (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I've heard, the green bubbles shown for non-iPhone users have a disproportionate effect in the US. There are also their strong lock-ins, like incompatible connectors and the difficulty of migrating your data to Android devices.
From what you hear, people are saying, there are those who would say, it has been suggested, ... stop pretending to be Fox News and pony up some hard data. Not that it will do you much good. You could make the same claim about any luxury brand or product having this same kind of 'effect'. That 'effect' is why people buy luxury anything. A luxury car/truck isn't really a car/truck, it's an insult that you can drive.
In Europe it's kind of the opposite - the iPhone is what people who don't know about phones and corporations get. Deeply uncool and suggesting that the owner is not tech savvy or had no choice. In China, iPhones are affordable to mid-range because there are so many used ones. People with money get a Huawei or Xiaomi.
Something happened in the US that didn't happen elsewhere for some reason. Stricter competition laws? I don't think it is a preference for home-grown tech as in Europe Samsung and Google are quite popular.
Nope, for the most part, hardly anybody in Europe gives a crap about what kind of phone you've got your nose buried in. Most Europeans will be annoyed at you for having your nose buried in a phone, any phone at all, instead of paying attention to what you are doing, ... like driving. Nobody much cares about the brand. I expect I's much the same is true in the USA and Asia.
Oh, and thanks to the EU for killing Lightning connectors off.
This is true.
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So what is your theory as to why iPhones are much more popular in the US than in Europe?
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2)
Oh that's easy, we've got a very high concentration of teenieboppers.
Re: Oh, I see (Score:4, Interesting)
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Perhaps a smaller proportion of Europeans buy into buying premium devices?
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2)
Why on earth would Google and the government think green bubbles are a thing in Europe? Everybody uses WhatsApp.
Recent experience for me: I needed to contact the owner of the flat next door. Sheâ(TM)s British, but lives in Madrid. Initial two or three messages each way went through with blue bubbles, and thus no international text fees. Then she noticed I have a WhatsApp account and started texting me there instead. No idea why, but thatâ(TM)s what people prefer this side of The Pond. Green
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So, people who spend $1000 on an iPhone, wont move to Android becausethey use a different charging brick?
Re: Oh, I see (Score:2)
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Apple entry model is 430 greenbacks. Or half of a bill.
IOW, a far cry from the $1600 that the DOJ was touting.
Not to mention there are plenty of Android phones that cost that, or even more.
That's like saying "GM makes cars that sell for $85,000"; without pointing out that they also sell cars for less than $22,000:
https://www.motortrend.com/rev... [motortrend.com]
It's just plan disingenuous.
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It only matters how long you can use your phone. If Apple does not put as big battery as competition, and loses in battery life because of that, is is not Apple who is winning.
https://bgr.com/tech/the-galax... [bgr.com]
When your system uses less power, it only needs a smaller battery.
Apple is the undisputed king of proper battery charging and also power management, both at the hardware and software level. And because they make both, they can design serendipitous strategies that optimize both. And they do.
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What did you regret? How it works? You dont like the interface?
All of these devices are way overpowered for what the vast majority use it for.,
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And yes, they are wildly overpowered- and have been since long before the M1.
I don't think any CPU in any phone or tablet has competed with an Apple CPU, really, in about a decade.
Whether or not that's worth anything? Arguably not. But it is a fact.
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You have an opinion, and that's fine. I've been a dual Android/Apple user since day 1 for both products. But you're not grounded in reality, you're just flatly full of shit. Why is that necessary on your part? Some kind of weird coping mechanism?
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Apple has consistently sold the devices with nowhere-close-to-competed-against performance, an equivalently high quality screen (high DPI OLED), good construction quality (no plastic), and good battery life.
You have an opinion, and that's fine. I've been a dual Android/Apple user since day 1 for both products. But you're not grounded in reality, you're just flatly full of shit. Why is that necessary on your part? Some kind of weird coping mechanism?
Mods: Howabout a big Informative Mod for the Parent?
Now there's a person who is truly qualified to qualify Apple vs. Android. And the fact that DamnOregonian is also "Damn Tech-Savvy", is rather thick icing on the cake!
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The fixes for it will be the same as various Spectre fixes. Constant-time programming in crypto libraries to make sure the timing can't be gleaned.
You're a perfect example of why technical reporting isn't really a good thing. People like you are too stupid to understand what you're reading.
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People or sheep? Apple locked in their users so that any sheep decided to try something else new still couldn't stray away from Apple's system without flexible abilties of switching or moving their own data to a new platform. So they may have to abandon Apple entirely, probably even have to get a new phone number. This is why I use F-Droid, more flexibility options and freedoms. I still wouldn't touch Fire phone, Windows, Google, etc anyway. There are some linux phones but they are too far to be pick up on radar for most sheep. Maybe government is punishing Apple because growing numbers of sheep wanting to stop being sheep are fleeing toward linux phones, that government's goal is keeping as many sheep on big tech's platforms, including Apple, where sheep data can be easily sniff, harvest, and sold to highest bidders. Apple's solution may be superior to Amazon, Windows, Google, etc but every actions has equal and opposite reactions. Those big techs probably have been lobbying against Apple for that reason causing the govenment to investigate which began during Trump's admin, now finally Apple is being sued and it will probably takes decades, a several president admins, for this lawsuit to be over if not turn over before. The other big tech phone makers could have improve by getting rid of bloatwares, spywares, etc, better options for users, and tune up app stores but no, they choose greed, same with Apple but Apple just does it differently.
Your logic is as missing as your paragraph breaks.
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That's just it, iPhones are not superior (they're competitive against other high-end phones) and this demonstrates how their anti-competitive practices have forced some people into buying their products.
. . .forced some people to buy their products.
Do you even listen to how impossibly, patently absurd that claim is?
Seriously.
I would argue... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know about that, millions of people are buying and using Echo devices. The Fire Phone failed because it was a stupid idea.
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That Amazon's Fire Phone failed because people knew it was made by Amazon.
I would substitute that with it failed because Amazon tried to lock it down by not installing the Play Store, trying to force everyone to download or buy only apps that they approved of. Basically the Fire Phone failed because Amazon tried to imitate Apple. So in a manner of speaking, it did fail because of Apple, but not in the way that the DOJ is implying. :-D
HTC didn't fail. They sold the division to another company that is still building phones.
Windows Phone failed because it was Windows. There's no
att only really killed that phone! (Score:2)
att only really killed that phone!
Not a fanboi (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm certainly not an Apple fanboi but I need to point out that the other phone manufacturers listed in this article made some pretty awful phones that people didn't want. I believe Apple has done, and is doing, shady things but the Microsoft and Amazon phones were never real competitors in the first place.
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The Windows Phone was amazing, actually, superior to iPhone and especially Andriod phones. The only thing that held it back was Google refusing to allow its services to work on it, and lack of shelf space, both due to the Apple and Google duopoly.
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I bought a Windows phone because of Slashdot fanboys. There were NO APPS, it was ridiculous. I mostly don't care about apps, but it was missing even basic shit. The OS was pretty but was a pain in the ass to navigate my small app collection.
After a couple of weeks I returned the phone.
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It actually had lots of awesome third party apps that hooked into APIs, which would then be maliciously changed constantly by Google and others.
WP was awesome.
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It actually had lots of awesome third party apps that hooked into APIs, which would then be maliciously changed constantly by Google and others.
WP was awesome.
I hadn't heard any of this, but if it was true that the Microsoft Phone was killed by monopolistic competitors underhandedly screwing with libraries and APIs to break them...
I'd laugh my ass off!
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It is certainly ironic!
Let's Play WhatAbout (Score:3)
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beOS (Score:2)
It wasn't Microsoft that killed beOS, but hubris.
They thought they had apple over the barrel, and stuck to a price so high that apple was able to acquire a Jobs with a free operating system attached for the same price.
be just didn't think that apple had any other alternative. oops.
That left them needing to try to sell for PC hardware, and there weren't all that many folks for whom it's preemptive multitasking was a golden arrow.
hawk
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It wasn't Microsoft that killed beOS, but hubris.
They thought they had apple over the barrel, and stuck to a price so high that apple was able to acquire a Jobs with a free operating system attached for the same price.
be just didn't think that apple had any other alternative. oops.
That left them needing to try to sell for PC hardware, and there weren't all that many folks for whom it's preemptive multitasking was a golden arrow.
hawk
Not to mention that in 1997, be was was in no way ready for Prime Time. Yeah it had some really cool ideas; but Apple didn't need another fixer-upper OS. They had their fill of that already with Copland!
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Nonsense. Nokia was near dead already, since they refused to innovate again the iPhone. Windows Phone extended its life by a few years, at least.
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The Elop conspiracy needs to die. Marketshare was already way down by the time he took over. The previous CEO had been fired for losing market share, and by the time Elop took over, Nokia was basically selling dumbphones and feature phones. Android getting decent and $200 was going to kill off Nokia's dumbphones no matter what Elop did.
Unreal (Score:5, Interesting)
I never expected to see this comparison.
The failures of other phone manufacturers could more readily be leveled against Motorola than Apple, honestly. The hardware available for quite some time was quite lackluster, and Apple made up for it by simply not trying to do as much with the hardware (eg. iOS didn't even have copy/paste for years, nevermind a file manager, which still doesn't exist in a meaningful sense).
Now, I personally think Android devices have failed largely due to the crapware and poor support that gets piled on, on top of the atrocious storage performance (which impacts the device performance from top to bottom). Add to the lack of support from device manufacturers with poor quality hardware and short device lifecycle (1-2 years in many cases before they simply failed) and you've got your answer.
Microsoft failed long before they exited the market, they were a non-starter starting around 2011 when Android became significantly more than the Blackberry was, and Microsoft decided to just throw out what good things they had with CE 6.5 and make things worse. But let's talk about the Microsoft tax for every Android device sold - eating a significant amount of the profit margins ($5-15 per device) - surely that was a factor in the failure of those other Android manufacturers, not Apple?
Amazon? Amazon tried making phones? Was their phone similarly shitty to what all their other devices are - underpowered, slow, crippled Android devices, purpose built almost exclusively to funnel customers to their "value added" Prime-packaged services like Photos, etc.? If so, that failure was entirely self-inflicted.
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Amazon? Amazon tried making phones? Was their phone similarly shitty to what all their other devices are - underpowered, slow, crippled Android devices, purpose built almost exclusively to funnel customers to their "value added" Prime-packaged services like Photos, etc.? If so, that failure was entirely self-inflicted.
Yes. And that is why it failed.
It was just as shitty as a FireTV. Super cool if you don't mind transitional animations occuring at 2.7fps.
There will still be people who defend Fire trash to the death, but I've used them all, because I like buying things that seem like they might be cool, which means I buy a whole lot of trash. Fire* is trash.
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Apple made up for it by simply not trying to do as much with the hardware (eg. iOS didn't even have copy/paste for years, nevermind a file manager, which still doesn't exist in a meaningful sense).
Copy & was added to iOS at version 3.0, released June, 2009; or about two years from the first iPhone was available. Apparently, it just wasn't ready at Launch, and Apple had bigger fish to fry with the OS at that point.
As for the Files App: Although it isn't a one-to-one Finder Replacement, it has made leaps and bounds, and in the past few years, it has grown most, if not all, of the basic functionality of a File Manager. Sometimes the UX is a bit obtuse; but even that has gotten much better.
In additio
Don't know about HTC & Amazon (Score:2)
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Here in Seattle, Windows phones were right out in front along with various Androids and iPhones.
I'm pretty sure they didn't take off simply due to momentum of the competing app ecosystems.
I used a few in store, and they seemed like fine devices. The Apps Available: 16 was a tough selling point, though.
Shakedown (Score:3, Insightful)
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M$ never had to learn shit. They're still as bad as ever. The "investigation" of the 1990's didn't go anywhere. It was trodden on and thrown in the scrap heap. The only smack on the hand that ever happened came from the EU later on. And even there M$ has long reverted back to more of the same, including forcing their web browser to be installed again.
In Other News (Score:2)
The Kansas City Chiefs blamed by the government for San Francisco losing the Super Bowl.
How's this for a reframe? (Score:2)
The DOJ blames Microsoft for the inability of Apple to have an equal share of the corporate computing market. Oh, yeah, that never happened. It's amazing to me that governments insist on killing the golden goose because the tax revenue they get isn't enough to fund their crap agenda. Let's kill Elon Musk's businesses not because the government isn't benefiting from their commerce but because the government can't control him like they can NASA and General Motors. Just imagine what the country would look
bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a well known Apple detractor but blaming them for the failure of specifically Microsoft or HTC is total garbage.
Microsoft phone failed because Microsoft drove away the developers (developers! developers!) by changing the system used to develop apps for their mobile platform three times in four years.
HTC failed because their hardware was trash and even when they refurbished devices they did a crap job. E.g. on the only Windows Mobile phone I ever owned (HTC Raphael 110) the sliding keyboard's flex cable would pull out of the socket, which could be fixed with a piece of tape, but they didn't put a piece of tape on it! Meaning that a local cell phone shop did a better job than the manufacturer!
Microsoft and HTC in particular failed at mobile phones because they were ass clowns, not because of Apple.
There are real and legitimate complaints to be made about Apple, these are not that.
Blame Apple for bad products from competitors? (Score:2)
Apple can be accused of many things, but for the failure of Windows Phone and Amazon Fire Phone? This just sounds like the DOJ is desperate to accuse Apple of something, because in reality Microsoft and Amazon, were responsible for the failure of their devices. This is much the same way RIM/Blackberry was responsible for its own demise, for having not adapted to the new landscape.
Until the iPhone came along Microsoft was barely doing enough to evolve the Windows Mobile platform and then was late to provide
I blame Apple (Score:2)
The competition chose badly (Score:2)
Apple mostly chose wisely.
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Who competes with the bundled services?
If you don’t have Apple, you don’t need any of the Apple Account features - they are all for Apple products.
The worst lock-in would be if you purchase/download a lot on Apple Music, and want to move away while keeping your library intactbut that would be the same if you were on Spotify, and moved to YouTube Music or whatever.
My bigger issue with Apple is the NFC lock-in, they should allow any approved developer to use any part of their hardware, and allow t
Re:It's valid (Score:4, Insightful)
If your purchased Apple Music, it's all DRM free these days so you can migrate it at will where ever you need it.
The only thing that won't migrate would be things like your preferences, playlists and other things, but I hear there are tools and services that will transfer them for you (for a fee, of course). But it's not like if you wanted to go from Spotify to Apple Music that there would be simple tools for that. (And Spotify still doesn't have features Apple Music, Pandora and others have).
But yes, iPhones are the reason why shitty phones that cost half as much as an iPhone failed. Because the last time I checked, people were willing to pay $800 for an iPhone but could not afford to pay the $200 the Amazon Fire phone cost. Unless Apple somehow managed to offer free iPhones or something?
The only thing Apple can really be accused of is making nice stuff people lust after. That's it. And sometimes, they lust after such nice stuff that they'll forego cheaper more reasonable options.
I mean, it's why we should all drive $10,000 econoboxes around, why bother saving up for a $50,000 EV, or a $70,000 luxury SUV? Surely everyone only needs the econobox, and it must be the SUV's fault that they don't sell.
'
Hell, can't you get a burner phone for like $50 prepaid these days at Walmart? Why isn't everyone going for those phones?
In the end, why bother with the massive lawsuit? I can see doing a much more focused lawsuit that's well researched and targets specific Apple policies that are objectionable. Instead, this feels like a kitchen sink lawsuit where they throw everything at Apple and hope some of it sticks. Rather than focusing on what would stick, and putting energy into that rather than wasting money on frivolous things.
Because if I was Apple, I'd go and try to quietly get those things that stick dismissed, while preferring to fight the more frivolous charges in court. Much easier to fight why a Amazon Fire phone didn't sell lawsuit than a lawsuit on specific App Store policies. And in the confusion, well, you get those hard ones dismissed while you let the easy ones through.
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Apple shouldn't be selling music, apps, movies, or any of that.
I can see a future where Apple produces the devices and operating system, but that's it. You own the device, but you can choose to use Google, or Amazon, or any other company as a service provider. Apple doesn't get any information about who's using the device except maybe the warranty registration.
Of course, they'd lose money with a model like that. Because it's unsustainable. They've effectively destroyed any possibility of competition by lock
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It's weird to me, because I thought Apple had a good thing going with Mac OS. They usually had some pretty good in-house applications that were, if not standard, at least common. They charged premium prices given the performance, but the system was very slick and professional with its sleek cases and sharp, square pixels with at least semi-consistent PPI. I know that last part sounds kind of funny, but there are even VGA modes with rectangular pixels, and before them CGA and EGA had them too. And of course
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It's weird to me, because I thought Apple had a good thing going with Mac OS. They usually had some pretty good in-house applications that were, if not standard, at least common. They charged premium prices given the performance, but the system was very slick and professional with its sleek cases and sharp, square pixels with at least semi-consistent PPI. I know that last part sounds kind of funny, but there are even VGA modes with rectangular pixels, and before them CGA and EGA had them too. And of course most non-flickery Amiga graphics modes had them.
I've used Macs from fairly far back (A little bit of System 5, a bunch of 6, and way too much 7 and 8, and a bit of X) and way back in the way back it was a reasonably solid system for the day with a nice feature set. There was a good selection of applications, and Macintoshes were the de facto standard for home or small office graphics or video.
Blathering follows: I've had IIs, PowerBooks, a Centris, a couple of G3s... All of them were second-hand, of course, because I wasn't about to pay full price for a Mac. But once I got going with Linux on a 386 (Slackware 2.0; Kernel 1.1.47 at the time, IIRC) it was only ever out of curiosity that I bothered with a Mac. Early versions of OSX were not too offensive, but I would have honestly preferred a straight port of NeXTStep. I might even have paid full price for that, when those shiny G4s came out. Apple was offering a pretty impressive processor at that moment...
They're offering a pretty impressive processor at this moment, too.
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Apple shouldn't be selling music, apps, movies, or any of that.
I can see a future where Apple produces the devices and operating system, but that's it. You own the device, but you can choose to use Google, or Amazon, or any other company as a service provider. Apple doesn't get any information about who's using the device except maybe the warranty registration.
Of course, they'd lose money with a model like that. Because it's unsustainable. They've effectively destroyed any possibility of competition by locking people into their ecosystem and rigorously working to undermine any possibility of competition. They don't even want unlicensed people performing mild repairs on their devices. It's perverse.
Of course, the "stop being poor, just buy an iPhone" crowd are seething, which is why this is modded down, but this kind of lock-in is unprecedented and something needs to be done about it.
That's no solution at all.
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Apple Music is available as an android app and as a cloud streaming service from a website.
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Who competes with the bundled services?
If you don’t have Apple, you don’t need any of the Apple Account features - they are all for Apple products.
The worst lock-in would be if you purchase/download a lot on Apple Music, and want to move away while keeping your library intactbut that would be the same if you were on Spotify, and moved to YouTube Music or whatever.
My bigger issue with Apple is the NFC lock-in, they should allow any approved developer to use any part of their hardware, and allow them to compete equally in the market (either that, or completely exclude 3rd party apps)
They now allow third party NFC Access. That's what "Tap to Pay" is all about.
https://developer.apple.com/ta... [apple.com]
So, yet another obsolete Claim by the DOJ.
With frivolous, outdated Claims like that, Apple's gonna eat them for breakfast.
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Doesn't Google pay Apple a lot of money to be able to spy on Apple users? Billions of dollars go to Apple from Google.
This article claims $20 billion a year, https://wccftech.com/google-is... [wccftech.com]
This one claims $15 billion a year, https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/25... [9to5mac.com] hmm actually that was 2021, now $18-$20 billion a year.
This one with similar figures references the Google anti-trust trial as a source, https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com].
All so Google can have access to Apple users.
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Google pays a lot of money to be set as the default search engine. That's the limit. Apple doesn't give them access to location data without a popup authorization screen.
Personally I switched my search to DuckDuckGo in settings. But should Apple make that the default for everyone? The reality is google does have better quality results. Should they sacrifice quality for privacy, or give people the choice?
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I'm in favour of choice. Was just pointing out that using an Apple device does not mean being completely free from Google. Even on my Android phone, I have DDG as my main search engine.
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Doesn't Google pay Apple a lot of money to be able to spy on Apple users? Billions of dollars go to Apple from Google.
This article claims $20 billion a year, https://wccftech.com/google-is... [wccftech.com]
This one claims $15 billion a year, https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/25... [9to5mac.com] hmm actually that was 2021, now $18-$20 billion a year.
This one with similar figures references the Google anti-trust trial as a source, https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com].
All so Google can have access to Apple users.
But so do DuckDuckGo and Bing and Yahoo and Ecosia, and I don't think they pay Apple one cent!
Google's just paying to be the Default Search Engine for Safari; but they are but a check-mark away from being denied all that juicy Data. On my iPhone (and my Macs), I use DDG. No sweet, sweet Datamining from me, Google!
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Seriously these same lies you have been spreading all day
It's not a lie; it's an OPINION.
Learn the difference, fuckwit!
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>DOJ Complaints never go this far-afield.
Really?
IBM was sued for "predatory advancement of technology" or something similar, for coming out with a triple disk drive before competitors had matched the capacity of a single.
Brown Shoe (a manufacturer) was sued to block the merger with Kinney's (a retailer), which had 5% and 1% of their respective markets (or do I have that backwards). The DoJ argument was that this would let them sell a product of comparable quality at a lower price.
The list of such thing
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>DOJ Complaints never go this far-afield.
Really?
IBM was sued for "predatory advancement of technology" or something similar, for coming out with a triple disk drive before competitors had matched the capacity of a single.
Brown Shoe (a manufacturer) was sued to block the merger with Kinney's (a retailer), which had 5% and 1% of their respective markets (or do I have that backwards). The DoJ argument was that this would let them sell a product of comparable quality at a lower price.
The list of such things goes on, but those are my two favorites.
I vaguely remember reading Brown Shoe. Yeah, pretty sad. . .
Perhaps I stand corrected. But the hyperbolic, breathless language still sounds like Epic contributed heavily, if they didn't just hand them the Draft.
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