Consumers Sue Apple, Taking Page From Justice Department Lawsuit (reuters.com) 116
Apple has been hit with a flurry of new consumer lawsuits accusing the iPhone maker of monopolizing the smartphone market, piggybacking on a sweeping antitrust case lodged by the U.S. Justice Department and 15 states last week. From a report: At least three proposed class actions have been filed since Friday in California and New Jersey federal courts by iPhone owners who claim Apple inflated the cost of its products through anticompetitive conduct. The lawsuits, seeking to represent millions of consumers, mirror the Justice Department's claims that Apple violated U.S. antitrust law by suppressing technology for messaging apps, digital wallets and other items that would have increased competition in the market for smartphones.
Lawyers smelling blood and riding coat tails (Score:2)
Lawyers wet dream of being able to piggyback on the governments action to size up their own boats. I'm sure the eventual settlement will be worth about $5 to any regular consumer. Might get $15 of app store credit thrown in if we're lucky (and give up any rights of our own to sue).
How do these class action suites lower future prices for me?
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How do these class action suites lower future prices for me?
Can't say I've ever really had a problem with what iPhones cost. Apple does offer less expensive models that aren't quite so rough on the pocketbook, and at least here in the US there are frequently upgrade promotions through the wireless carriers (usually with the caveat that the phone is carrier locked for several months and in some cases the discount is in the form of monthly bill credits against a two-year finance agreement).
No, the most egregious of Apple's anti-competitive behaviors aren't what the p
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The company subsidizing the phone doesn't mean the cost isn't a problem. Apple offering a lesser version doesn't mean there isn't a cost problem. Since 2007, the raw retail markup has been anywhere from ~125% (not bad) to ~260% (fucking insane). There is no consistency. Many times, the newer model cost even less than a previous model to manufacture and they charged even more for it. Apple buyers are fucking stupid and understand nothing.
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If the service costs the same, why should anyone care what the carrier is into it for with the device subsidy? Take Metro by T-Mobile for example, it's exactly the same monthly plan cost whether you grab their cheap-ish iPhone promo (presently an iPhone 12 for $100) or whatever bottom-tier garbage Android phone they're presently giving away for free.
It's also fairly common for cheap Android phones to never get a single OS update during their entire lifespan, whereas even older iPhones are usually still goo
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Metro, as per your example, isn't really subsidizing their phones. They explicitly only carry older models that they can get for cheap. Or are perhaps even left over from stock that T-Mobile wasn't able to sell when they were actually new phones.
No, the real subsidies are happening at the major carrier level, of which I do not consider T-Mobile to be part of because T-Mobile and everything related to it is absolute trash (at least in the US). Where you can upgrade your phone after only paying for 50% of it.
In our system it's about the only way (Score:2)
Would I like a better system? Sure. But I need to convince folks to vote for progressive candidates instead of drowning in cynicism. Among the old farts here on
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to reign companies in [emphasis added]
I know you're more literate that that.
Such a stupid anti-trust. (Score:3)
The products are expensive, but they work, and frankly if people are going to argue the prices are inflated, they're not inflated enough to prevent sales. What makes a product worth $1 or $1 million? A product is worth what someone is willing to pay, that's it, that's all.
If the argument is over compatibility, Apple is hardly the abuser in that case. Microsoft rare release products that work on Linux, without workarounds. I can think of X companies whose products are platform locked, so If the argument is over compatibility, then mandate open source, open audit, and open builds.
If the argument is due to fee structures for developers, you might have something you could work with. The issue with going after Apple over fees, you also have to go after every other company with abusive fee polices.
This seems like a witch hunt against Apple, because everything Apple is guilty of, numerous other companies are equally guilty of.
Re:Such a stupid anti-trust. (Score:5, Informative)
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I can think of X companies whose products are platform locked, so If the argument is over compatibility, then mandate open source, open audit, and open builds.
If they want to use RCS as a basis for anything, then really go for it, and force open source compliance across the board for everything. Getting annoyed with Apple because they want a closed ecosystem, is every different from having anticompetitive behaviour. Apple offers a lifestyle, and it's a user's choice if they pick that lifestyle.
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a market full of choices.
The alternate options are either Google or not owning a smartphone. That's hardly a market full of choices.
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That brings up a good point, let's take Slack as an example.
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Yeah, there's certainly some options if you're okay with a generic cellular connected slab in your pocket that runs some sort of OS, but app compatibility starts going out the window the moment you're running anything other than Android with Google Play Services. Realistically, most phones have locked bootloaders, so you're not likely going to be installing a ROM on that phone you snagged a bargain on through Slickdeals. You're pretty much limited to buying specific hardware designed for such a purpose an
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Okay, but you're pointing out the real issue, the applications suck and don't work! Developers are generally lazy, and don't want to spend the time to build a robust framework to handle X conditions or operating environments.
Try to look at it from the other perspective, say you're a restaurant, bank, EV charger network operator, etc. Your core business isn't developing mobile apps, so you pay some other company to develop and maintain that app for you. They've delivered goods and you consider it a job well done once they've spat out ports for Android and iOS and gotten them approved by their platforms' respective app stores.
From the way they see things, if you can't run their app, this is a solvable problem by you going to th
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Apple has something like 30% of the global cell phone market.
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Apple has something like 30% of the global cell phone market.
And over 60% of the market in the US, where the litigation is going on.
Re:Such a stupid anti-trust. (Score:4, Informative)
Apple doesn't support RCS and prevents anyone from interacting with the Apple messenger. Sounds like classic abuse of market position to me. The same can't be said about Google in this case.
Except Apple already announced they ARE going to support RCS, and are working with GSMA to add E2EE to the standard, as Google's implementation is their own and not a part of the actual RCS standard.
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Only took them 15 years since RCS was released, and 9 years since Android included it.
*yawn* Man, Apple really doing the innovation around here... /s
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Re: Such a stupid anti-trust. (Score:2)
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Except Apple already announced they ARE going to support RCS
You make it sound like it was merely a technical issue. It was NEVER a technical issue. It was an intentional management decision.
If they had wanted RCS to work, it would be working already; therefore, no promises of "we are working on it" are good enough.
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And WhatsApp is trash. It's owned by Meta, aka Facebook, so it has zero trustworthiness now.
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The argument is more complicated than "compatibility" or "fee structures" or whatever is floating around that brain of yours. Other companies might also be guilty of things (even monopolies), however, those other companies haven't consistently antagonized both the US and European governments like Apple has. They continue to think they can just do whatever they want because morons think their stuff is pretty (yes, I'm calling your daughter a moron - I don't care). Prices aren't inflated enough to keep people
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The fact the iPhone could tank, is enough of a reason it's not a monopoly.
What honest aspect of Apple is anticompetitive?
No, the subsidies are only really possible because of Apple's market position. The subsidies of today didn't exist when iPhone was first starting out. Back in the day, new customers got the good deals and loyal, upgrading customers didn't really get much of anything. Which was good in a competitive sense. Then Apple users who wanted the same deal as new customers started to bitch and moan and throw a fit until they got their upgrades to match the new user deals, because all Apple users are basically shitty
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The ecosystem is designed to work together, that's the selling point, and that's been the selling point for decades. If you honestly want
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Yes, they could also use Discord or WhatsApp - that isn't the point. The point is that if I am going to rely on SMS/MMS Apple users shouldn't have to rely on Apple's iMessages. It wasn't until just this year that Apple started allowing different browser engines. Sure, you could use Chrome or Firefox instead of Safari, but it was still Safari's absolute garbage engine instead of Chrome's.
There are no official versions of Skype, Teams, or Office for Linux. Just like there aren't Windows (or Linux) versions of
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Apple is a closed ecosystem, if Apple is forced to open everything up, then every company who closes everything down, must, without restriction, do the same.
That's why Microsoft would have to, without argument, release versions of Teams and Office for Linux, or any other example of a closed off software platform.
These are not the same thing you fucking retard.
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Microsoft refusing to allow MS Office to run on Linux, is not functionally different from Apple not allow X, Y and Z from running. If you don't understand why these are the same, then you're too closed-minded. If Apple is a monopoly because they're a closed ecosystem, then Microsoft, or any large comp
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No, they are fundamentally two completely different things. Forcing Apple to "open up" isn't the same thing as telling Apple they must write a version of GarageBand for Windows. And there are plenty of other reasons to have closed source software over open source, though I would prefer open source. They may be tangentially related, but they are fundamentally NOT the same thing. Only a complete moron with no understanding of what he is talking about would think so.
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Have a very pleasant week / Easter (the first time Jesus was given a chocolate bunny)
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There doesn't need to be examples or reasons. They just simply aren't the same thing. Apples are different from oranges because they just are. It doesn't matter. Yelling at the gatekeeper to open the gate is not the same thing as demanding them to build more fence.
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If the question is about sugar content in fruit, both Apples and Oranges have sugar. Sometimes Apples have a higher s
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And yet, apples are distinctly different from oranges despite those similarities.
An intentional closed ecosystem is not a defense to having a monopoly, mostly because it's completely unrelated to having a monopoly, but also because there are no valid defenses to having a monopoly. You either have one or you don't. Microsoft did used to have one, and they're dangerously close again, but they aren't quite there.
You can have a closed ecosystem without being a monopoly. You can have an open ecosystem and still
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Part of making this a general antitrust should be a move to force openness, be that Open Source, Open Audit, Open Deployment, and just ope
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What has Apple really done except...
They've done quite a few things that suck.
They charge to develop for their platform, then gatekeep allowing you to host your software on their exclusive platform behind a bevy of pointless restrictions that only serve to bring them profit.
They intentionally make it difficult if not impossible to repair or replace components on Apple devices to force you into their cycle of planned obsolescence and their "just buy a new one" ecosystem.
They're a monopoly and I'm glad they're finally being called out
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If the argument is due to fee structures for developers, you might have something you could work with. The issue with going after Apple over fees, you also have to go after every other company with abusive fee polices.
Should force right to repair be a thing? Maybe, I can certainly see the benefit, but at the same time very few people are going to be able to preform a repair, even with the tools and know how. Force it, but most people aren't going to care enough to repair their devices, so it's a non-started.
Do they platform lock people? Yes, of course they do, but Apple has always been a closed ecosystem, and that's a large draw for the Apple crowd. No one is forced to use the products, and bec
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No one is forced to use the products
Read some of the other comments on this article. People are very much forced to use them, usually by inconveniences of interoperability which Apple actively added just to be difficult and drive people to use iOS device. File sharing, email, sms, app availability, there's so many reasons Apple is actively preventing other ecosystems from working with their products and software.
Glad the EU and others are finally getting a fire under their ass to call them on it and bring laws that have existed forever to
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If you're in a situation where your work requires it, then your work needs to provide it, so that doesn't count. If you need the product for school, just tell the school to go bleep itself, pick the open source option and continue on. When it comes to personal choice, well that's personal, again, you can pick GNU/Linux, Solaris, GNU/Solaris, FreeBSD, Haiku, GNU/Hurd, or if you have no standards Windows. Even if
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just tell the school to go bleep itself, pick the open source option and continue on
Tell me you haven't been to college in decades without saying it. That's a fantastic way to fail your courses with no refund given. College is expensive enough without that shit.
Do you think a divorce lawyer is cheaper than using an iPhone? Or are you just one of those hardass morons who would rather fight about which phone you have than just use the one that makes your wife/husband/significant other/children/parents not mad at you all the time?
We won't ever agree, because I'm not going to change my m
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I was at university ~10 years ago, and back then we had a laundry list of required applications. Only a couple had reasonable stand ins, Octave for Matlab for instance. The rest were closed off garbage, and from day one I refused to use most of them. I got a ton of push back from professors, but bleep them, I'm paying, so I'm controlling the allowed platforms. I wouldn't change my mind today, and there's still plenty of software I refuse to run, Windows bein
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Fuck Apple (Score:2)
I have despised Apple from day one. Woz was the only thing good about Apple and rumper Jobs canned him.
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Wozniak left Apple after a brain injury from a plane crash. https://lemelson.mit.edu/resou... [mit.edu]
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So. Ozzy has a brain injury and he still tries to rock with his original band.
Monopoly of their own product (Score:2)
This has to be, along with the DOJ lawsuit, some of the dumbest arguments over monopoly ever. Every complaint I see boils down to "Apple created this thing and I can't do whatever I want with it so... monopoly!"
Allowing any of these frivolous cases to go through is a straight forward attack against proprietary 'anything'. The argument that everything should be generic and usable by everyone will never pass muster because then every business must hold itself to that low standard. Stagnation as the rule is wh
Slashdot hates everything (Score:2)
Slashdot: RREEEEEE {{company}} is bad and evil!! They shouldn't exist or need to be broken up or some way for them to stop doing this evil behavior!!
Articles about the EU [slashdot.org] and US [slashdot.org] Governments and its people [slashdot.org] realizing {{ company }} is bad and evil.
Slashdot: RREEEEEE the Government/people are stupid and evil!! {{company}} can do whatever it wants!
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Yeah, the great news is that when it comes to certain subjects or companies you can simply ignore the slashdot articles. Anything about Apple gets filled with knee-jerk disparagements that contain exactly nothing new, further the conversation not at all, and are devoid of nuanced insight. So you can safely skip straight over them and go somewhere else for meaningful discussion. Just google the subject line and follow links to elsewhere.
Don't buy apple then (Score:2)
No one is forcing you to buy Apple. There are only essentially two phone systems because who the hell wants to deal with more? No consumer wants to struggle with it, they just want it to work. Done. Apple's closed garden appeals to these folks. We've struggled to get connector standards and these suits want chaos in the phone market? LG dropped out of the market even though they made nice, reasonably priced phones but people voted with their wallets.
Ahhh.. America... where those who can, do (Score:2)
America.. where those who can, do.
Those who can't, sue. Or teach. Or teach others who can't do, to sue.
First-World Lawsuits? (Score:2)
Wondering whether to file this under: [Waste of Time] or [Jilted Lovers]
Harrison Bergeron (Score:2)
It was the year 2081, and all companies were finally equal.
In the epochal Apple antitrust decision of that year, it finally became legal for Apple to sell consumer products again. Each item in the product line had to be speed-limited to match the average of other products on the market. Smartphones had to be made to break as often as Android products. Synchronization between devices was required to be subject to a specified minimum average of random errors per operating day. A crucial element of the decisio
Simple Response (Score:2)
Re: oh noes (Score:2)
Market share (Score:2)
Anti-trust becomes a thing when you have dominant market player. When that happens you get the DOJ stepping in to referee.
Ask yourself how much fun football would be if it didn't have refs and the NFL keeping things fair. The big states would use their money to dominate and the smaller ones would just suck. It would just be San Fran vs New York every single year.
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Re:oh noes (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't sit there pretending that it isn't a problem that the only real competitor to Apple also happens to be the world's largest advertising company.
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No doubt but what can you do about that? The DOJ can't magic a new and benevolent competitor into existence.
Why not?
They're sure trying to Magic iOS into Android!
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You can't even begin to understand what a monopoly is let alone when a company has one.
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If you have a patent or copyright, you have a monopoly.
They don’t go after monopolies, they go after monopolies that abuse their position.
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If you have a patent or copyright, you have a monopoly.
Maybe on an extreme micro level. But at the normal macro level, no, not even close.
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If you have a patent or copyright, you have a monopoly.
They don't go after monopolies, they go after monopolies that abuse their position.
Apple (and many others) spends a considerable amount of money paying our license fees for technology that they don't hold patents for. Most of these have to deal with wireless communications.
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Apple (and many others) spends a considerable amount of money paying our license fees for technology that they don't hold patents for. Most of these have to deal with wireless communications.
That all depends on whether it's somebody Apple feels they can push around.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/26... [cnn.com]
Apple's anti-competitive BS forced me to buy one (Score:5, Insightful)
Look Apple fucked over the market. Let's not sugarcoat this. And the could have easily acted nicer. Want examples? iMessages attachment support....or the fact that Apple apps are never ported to Android. I can access EVERY Google service on an iPhone. Why can't I get reminders or Notes on an Android or PC?...Hell, why not compromise?...charge me a fee for Apple app access...that would be fair if Apple considers their apps loss leaders for Hardware purchases. If you don't want to do that, at least open up APIs so 3rd party apps can do that. And that whole blue vs green bubble is just petty and vindictive. I never personally cared, but come on...it just makes you look shitty, Apple.
My wife wanted to share photos and videos and reminders and notes with me and while I could do that on my iPad and Macbook, I couldn't on my phone, so she demanded I switch. I am sure I am not the only one pressured by family to switch. No Android user pressures iPhone users to switch because Google plays nicely and ports their apps to iPhone. In fact, I use all of them daily on mine. No Apple user ever had issues with anything I sent or Android apps I used.
Other examples? Apple's charging. Why can't I use magsafe or lightning on Android phones? We all know that's bullshit. They used USB-C on all iPads. They could have switched the iPhone, Headset, and AirPods LONG ago AND made their customers happier....but it sure was easy once the EU threatened.
Obviously, anyone with a working memory of technology history knows Apple's transgressions are not the most egregious in history....but their market capitalization is. They're making a TON of money AND making the lives worse for their customers in minor ways...just to be dicks.
While I am not Tim Cook and thus have no way of knowing for sure, I am pretty confident they're not making a TON of money all those years by forcing people to buy shitty lightning cables when USB-C was far superior and ubiquitous on all other phones. I am pretty confident they would not lose much money by opening up their app APIs or porting versions to other OSes. Hell, I am pretty confident they didn't save money or space or reduce waterproofing by making the "courageous" decision to remove headphone ports on all their devices....but they did make the experience of using their devices a lot worse by forcing me to use far inferior and laggier Bluetooth headphones. While most apps now fix the delay, my first experiences with it were pretty terrible and the sound quality of my Bluetooth headphones is still inferior to my 20 year old $100 sony studio monitors, despite my new headphones costing 3x as much (and being disposable since I can't change the battery).
But to the point, I wasn't technically "forced"...I could have pissed off my wife and extended family for longer, but I figured an iPhone was cheaper than a divorce lawyer. My wife is much happier...not because the iPhone is better, but because we placated the shitty monopolist company she bought her phone from.
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Why is it Apple's responsibility to support your third rate phone? Google doesn't even support it.
Re: Apple's anti-competitive BS forced me to buy o (Score:2)
Lawyer: Sir, madam, is there any reason you didnâ(TM)t use WhatsApp ?
Jo: Uh, because I wanted my Apple goodies
Lawyer: so why are using suing Apple?
Jo: because my friends arenâ(TM)t using Apple and moneyâ¦
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Lawyer: Sir, madam, is there any reason you didnâ(TM)t use WhatsApp ?
How about "Because I live in the USA and almost no one uses that here."?
Granted, yes, I do realize Facebook Messenger is popular here and they're both owned by Meta, but they're still technically not the same thing. Most Americans only use Facebook Messenger because it's a bundled feature of Facebook, whereas you have to specifically sign up for every other third party messaging service.
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Not to mention WhatsApp is just absolute trash. I do not understand why anyone likes it. "It's got E2E encryption!" they claim. Yet, that hasn't stop WhatsApp from being compromised. Hasn't stopped hackers from using WhatsApp as an attack vector to take control of devices. Didn't stop NSO from snooping in on conversations.
It's not a good service or app.
What benefit do you get from their practices? (Score:2)
Lawyer: Sir, madam, is there any reason you didnâ(TM)t use WhatsApp ?
I have a lot of friends...telling everyone I know, all of my kids' friends parents, my extended family, etc to use the app of my choice instead of the one they want to is just not really worth what Android offers. You have a choice between two close competitors. Pre-Pichai, I was a huge Google fan and have always preferred Android phones, and iPhone isn't bad. It's easier just to pay a little more and switch and make everyone happy....and while this is not oppression or anything hyperbolic, I am not ha
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Lawyer: Sir, madam, is there any reason you didnâ(TM)t use WhatsApp ?
I have a lot of friends...telling everyone I know, all of my kids' friends parents, my extended family, etc to use the app of my choice instead of the one they want to is just not really worth what Android offers. You have a choice between two close competitors. Pre-Pichai, I was a huge Google fan and have always preferred Android phones, and iPhone isn't bad. It's easier just to pay a little more and switch and make everyone happy....and while this is not oppression or anything hyperbolic, I am not happy about it and will happily bitch about Apple's practices and would love to see them be as open as Google is with Android. I think everyone would prefer that. Let me flip the question around to you.
What benefit do you get from Apple's monopolistic practices?
What benefit do Apple Users expect to get from Google's DataRaping Practices?
Always Remember: Google isn't "Open". Google is ONLY Data-Hungry. That is the ONLY reason their Apps are on iOS. The ONLY reason.
And you are a Liar if you even try to spew something in Rebuttal to that!
Full agreement on the chat/IM (Score:2)
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for what it's worth high end Androids do seem to support Mag Safe, but you've got to watch what you're buying. I think Samsung & Google's phones support it, not sure if anyone else's do.
Qi charging on Samsung at least, is still a dumpster fire. My partner has the latest Samsung S24 gargantuan extreme plus phone and we gave up trying to find a desktop wireless charger that worked reliably. It also doesn't seem to want to charge on the wireless charging pad in his Chevy Bolt EUV, whereas my iPhone 13 mini charges just fine.
Wireless charging is one of the areas where it really does "just work" on iPhones.
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Qi charging on Samsung at least, is still a dumpster fire. My partner has the latest Samsung S24 gargantuan extreme plus phone and we gave up trying to find a desktop wireless charger that worked reliably.
I was really surprised to read this. My current Samsung Galaxy is an S21; I've also had an S8 and S6. All of them have worked just fine with the really inexpensive wireless chargers I got on Amazon; one purchased in 2016, another in 2018. The one from six years ago is sill in daily use.
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I was really surprised to read this. My current Samsung Galaxy is an S21; I've also had an S8 and S6. All of them have worked just fine with the really inexpensive wireless chargers I got on Amazon; one purchased in 2016, another in 2018. The one from six years ago is sill in daily use.
Back when I had a Galaxy S6, I frequently woke up to it not being fully charged. Now it's possible that not keeping the phone completely "topped off" when being charged through Qi is the designed behavior, but that's exactly what was happening with my partner's S24 Ultra.
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The point is, characterizing Samsung Qi charging as a dumpster fire based on the experience of you and your partner probably isn't entirely accurate. I'm not claiming that my experience is overwhelmingly typical, but I do know a number of people whose experience is similar to mine. Most of the complaints I've seen have revolved around efficiency and charging time.
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The point is, characterizing Samsung Qi charging as a dumpster fire based on the experience of you and your partner probably isn't entirely accurate.
I'm willing to accept that we've possibly just had bad luck, but again, I've used iPhones since they added Qi charging and never had a problem (even before they had the magnets for alignment), and back when my partner used iPhones he never ran into an issue either. We can't get the S24 Ultra to reliably charge wirelessly in his car, and all of the desktop chargers we've tried had various intermittent issues. It's entirely possible there's a defect in the phone, but that's another area where Samsung and Ap
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You mean Qi and Android has had that for many years. Apple pretended like they invented it.
Just like they pretend to have invented tap to pay when it's literally a contactless EMV standard that's also embedded in most of my physical cards. I literally heard an ad this morning from Apple saying their Apple Pay is more secure than physical cards because it's resistant to skimming - even though almost all my physical cards have the same thing.
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Magsafe is part of the Qi standard these days so your phone can align and snap to the right spot for charging. It's part of the standard because Apple gave it to Qi because it offered a lot of benefits. (Plus, it's not like Apple could patent it and there are dozens of magsafe magnets you can stick to your phone as an op
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The next iteration of the Qi charging standard has Magsafe compatible magnetics. It's not 100% the same because they have to deal with non-phone shaped devices, but it's compatible.
You can get cases for most phones that make them Magsafe compatible. Just beware that some don't have the magnetics in the right place to align with the coil.
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The blue/green bubble is not vindictive, it's a technical indicator giving you important information about what you can and cannot send to other other side.
Apple could've implemented the indicator in some other manner rather than making each and every bubble that God-awful bright florescent green color. Apple could also allow the end user to run a 3rd party SMS messaging app or to customize the damn colors, but nope.
Ironically, there was an old jailbreak tweak which let you pick different message bubble colors. It's rather surprising something like that had to be implemented as a hack, but that's stubborn user-hostile Apple for you.
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The blue/green bubble is not vindictive, it's a technical indicator giving you important information about what you can and cannot send to other other side.
Apple could've implemented the indicator in some other manner rather than making each and every bubble that God-awful bright florescent green color. Apple could also allow the end user to run a 3rd party SMS messaging app or to customize the damn colors, but nope.
Ironically, there was an old jailbreak tweak which let you pick different message bubble colors. It's rather surprising something like that had to be implemented as a hack, but that's stubborn user-hostile Apple for you.
Android picked their Signature Color. Apple just used it as a mnemonic for the User. Funny enough, people on Android don't even see it. . .
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You accidentally proved my point (Score:3)
1) Not up to Apple to port third party iOS apps to Android.
Huh? who said it was? Kewl strawman, though, "champ."
3) Market capitalization has nothing to do with how much they are making.
Awesome job at being pedantic and you're also wrong. Market capitalization is not a 1 to 1 to profitability or marketshare, but it's strongly correlated and reasonable to swap the two terms, even if it is not the best phrasing. Market value would have been a better term, but Market capitalization is correlated with a company's value, specifically in the eyes of investors. You knew what I meant, decided to be pedantic, and somehow still were wrong...n
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1) Not up to Apple to port third party iOS apps to Android.
Huh? who said it was? Kewl strawman, though, "champ."
3) Market capitalization has nothing to do with how much they are making.
Awesome job at being pedantic and you're also wrong. Market capitalization is not a 1 to 1 to profitability or marketshare, but it's strongly correlated and reasonable to swap the two terms, even if it is not the best phrasing. Market value would have been a better term, but Market capitalization is correlated with a company's value, specifically in the eyes of investors. You knew what I meant, decided to be pedantic, and somehow still were wrong...not sure why you bothered with that, given your other errors in the post: technical, comprehension, and grammatical...but quite classy!
4) You could have used a Lightning to headphone adapter all along champ, you never had to use Bluetooth.
Or I could have kept my Android which has a headphone jack.
However, here's where you proved my point
It's a technical indicator giving you important information about what you can and cannot send to other other side"
Whoosh!!!
Re: (Score:2)
Been a while since I've seen such an egregious collection of misinformation in a post.
Just a few random points you got wrong, out of the large total:
Nice list; but you forgot some:
1. USB-C didn't even exist when Apple created Lightning. Plus, it was created in Response to sabre-rattling by the EU, threatening to force the world's worst connector, microUSB, on Apple as "the Universal Charging Standard". Fortunately for Apple Device owners worldwide, Apple said "No!" and "Hell No!", and Lightning was the Result.
2. I think it was just recently that all iPads adopted USB-C. It took quite awhile to switch them all over from Lightning.
3. No iPhone or iPad has
Slight exaggeration, but... (Score:3)
Assuming you AREN'T being facetious, and you were serious that it was either switch your phone or get divorced...then it sounds like your wife is a huge bitch. If your extended family was pissed that you weren't on Apple, then your extended family are also a bunch a bitches. Their happiness is meaningless and those morons don't deserve any.
...sure, my wife wasn't drawing up divorce papers, but she was annoyed by my Pixel and VERY happy when I switched. However, are you really serious in your comments? You don't give a shit about your friends, family, and loved ones? They want to share kid videos and all sorts of things. It's easy on an iPhone to other iPhone users. It's easy on Android to anyone. It's hard to do from Apple to Android. (At least it was 2 years ago before I switched).
If you can't grasp why this would matter, I honestly
Re: (Score:2)
My entire family uses iPhones and always has. I do not care. The people that I care the most about on a daily basis, and any of them that care about me, will use Discord. It's better than using any kind of SMS messaging. It's better than WhatsApp. It's better than Facebook messenger. And it's on EVERY platform. It's gamer oriented so it doesn't show up on a lot of non-gamers radars by default, but it is superior to them all.
Not to mention all the other very easy ways to share various attachments between the
Re: (Score:2)
I love that Apple is slowly being forced to open their standards, but I wonder whether criticizing it for creating walled gardens won't have ironic consequences as less-popular competitors realize they're doing the same thing to others as well ....
Lately the EU has factored a company's marketshare size into whether the regulations would apply. That seems like a fair way of removing the burden of compliance from smaller companies, while preventing large duopolies from abusing their positions.
The US however, will probably just issue a fine and send Apple back on their merry way. That's how we do things here.
oh noes (Score:2)
It's not illegal because Apple made a product, it's illegal because Apple has control of the phone market and is leveraging that to control chat & IM.
It's *exactly* the same thing Microsoft did with Internet Exploder/Windows. The only difference is we're supposed to hate Microsoft and love Apple because reasons.
Re: (Score:3)
It's *exactly* the same thing Microsoft did with Internet Exploder/Windows. The only difference is we're supposed to hate Microsoft and love Apple because reasons.
Actually, the difference was that you could kind of just ignore that IE existed. Well, I suppose it gave web developers headaches, but as an end user you could just give IE the finger and install Netscape Navigator.
Apple's user-hostile behaviors are far more egregious, because as the OP said, you send a video to an Android user via MMS and did they actually receive it? Who knows. Then there's that every time you click on an address, it opens in Apple Maps because you can't set a different default mapping [reddit.com]
Re: (Score:3)
It's not illegal because Apple made a product, it's illegal because Apple has control of the phone market and is leveraging that to control chat & IM.
Globally, Android has about 70% market share over Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
I would agree with you ... until Apple went hard on to shutdown Beeper. That put the nail in the coffin for the DoJ. If they let Beeper be then I believe this whole filing would not happen.
Wrong.
The DOJ just didn't want to look weak in comparison to the EU.