News

5. Force them to allow the use of hardware without an account.

This should be a rule for all products.

problem is that they are ready to do anything to keep their locked ecosystem (see how they sabotaging alt stores in EU)

you have to stomp apples anticompetive strategies HARD

Can’t you already do #5?

I have Macs and iOS devices that aren’t logged into an iCloud account.

Can I use a web browser not based on Safari finally?

Forced bundling of their preferred apps like a browser was what triggered the Microsoft anti trust, this is well overdue and Apple should have known it was coming

My boss was kinda giving me and another guy some shit for having Android phones (he has an iPhone). Not in a mean way, just kind of razzing us about it.

Other dude looked at him and goes, "Sorry for being poor, I guess," and then started laughing, haha. But yeah, I've had several people over the years be perplexed by anything that wasn't an iPhone.

My guess is that it took a while because they’ve been able to argue that they’re not a monopoly in the market. It’s a duopoly in the US because Android controls 40% of the market and Apple has 60%.

It’s a stupid argument and it’s still anticompetitive. That said, the last time the US government cracked down on an operating system manufacturer like this, it was Microsoft, and they had over 90% of the market.

Highlight the tracks, command+c, paste into numbers, and then print it.

Was my first idea and it works, took about 5 seconds.

Apple Music on MacOS has this. Create a playlist with the tracks. File -> Print

Music finally replaced iTunes a few weeks ago on Windows.

At least one thing is supposedly rejecting payments apps and things that competed with built-in Apple apps and services.

This means that the reporters haven't read through all the hundreds of pages yet.

It's 100% not about how much market share they have, it's about the restrictions on hardware and software:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/business/live-news/doj-apple-antitrust-lawsuit-03-21-24/index.html

The DOJ claims Apple has used anticompetitive tactics, such as blocking innovative new apps and degrading how Android messages appear on iPhones, to maintain a monopoly on the smartphone market.

I don't know what the criteria the FTC uses is, or what exactly Apple is accused of, but economically, I'd say that Apple and Google largely have different markets. There are Android users and iOS users. Because apps are not portable across these, a user's software library largely locks them into and constrains them to use the same platform, as shifting away from the platform would require throwing out their software library.

So if you're an iOS user, for example, there's really one app store out there that you can use. Android isn't really an option.

And I'd say that there's probably fertile ground for a company to have a monopoly position there.

You'd be right, if the hardware AND software weren't made by the same company and locked to each other and that same company didn't simultaneously have a massive market share

The App Store is anti-competitive. The hardware is not.

Not sure what that means, exactly. The hardware is not competitive because it is locked to a proprietary OS created by the hardware manufacturer. This is an arbitrary limitation that benefits no one but Apple, and stifles competition with other OS's.

That's without even mentioning the limitations on repairs that contribute to e-waste and costs consumers money unnecessarily.

It seems that the App Store and other walled garden restrictions are what the suit is about. The posted article is vague and confusing: first talking about an “illegal monopoly in smartphones” but then referring to the “walled garden”, etc.

This article notes that

The heart of the lawsuit centers around claims that Apple stopped smaller companies from accessing the hardware and software in its iPhones, which led to fewer options for customers.

referring to hardware monopoly power may be some legalese needed to meet the requirements to file an antitrust suit, or to head off defense arguments by making a distinction between Apple and other instances of walled gardens, like game consoles.

Someone said Lina Khan's tenure has been a failure because despite gesturing at all the right players, her FTC has failed to make progress because they're calling the wrong plays

All by design, it's only a failure to us stupid prolies. They're intentionally giving their corporate donors softballs that they know will never hurt their bottom line so that they can turn around come election season and say "Well, at least we tried!" and hope we don't look any further.

FWIW, I don't think this is failure is Khan's fault. She seems to have spent her professional career developing anti-trust philosophy. The only issue is that the FTC is the state mechanism to protect the wealth funnel and there's very little a individual can do within the Commission to protect consumers.