The U.S. Department of Justice today sued Apple, alleging that the company has maintained an illegal monopoly on the smartphone market by locking out customers, driving up prices, and selectively imposing contractual restrictions on developers, preventing critical ways of accessing them. to features to prevent competition. .
“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the Justice Department says, along with the 16 state and district attorneys with whom it filed the lawsuit.
If you were wondering, yes, green bubbles are mentioned. In fact, suppressing the quality of messaging between iPhone and competing platforms is one of the main points of the case.
It also covers limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches on its iPhones, making it difficult for Apple Watch users to switch from iPhone and preventing third-party developers from creating competing digital wallets with “tap to pay” functionality for iOS. Ironically, Apple was recently forced to allow such third-party digital wallet functionality on iPhones in the EU through that bloc’s recently enforced Digital Markets Act, but – Apple being Apple – it only opened it up in the EU and nowhere else. other part.
Apple is also accused of “disrupting” so-called “super apps” (think WeChat/Weixin in China and you get the idea, we’re talking about apps that are messaging apps, payment apps, shopping apps and even hubs for other apps all at the same time). Apple is said to have done this on purpose because it realized that allowing such apps would worsen the “stickiness of iOS” and make it easier for users to switch to competing devices.
Another point is that Apple has limited the availability of cloud streaming apps for things like games by making unreasonable demands (each game would have to be submitted individually to Apple for the usual review process, for example, even if it’s a retail title streaming). This is presumably done so that people can’t just run any game on very cheap hardware, mitigating the need to upgrade to a new iPhone every few years.
The head of the DOJ’s antitrust division, Jonathan Kanter, said:
For years, Apple has responded to competitive threats by imposing a series of “Whac-A-Mole” contractual rules and restrictions that have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers, impose higher fees on developers and creators, and limit alternatives competitive with rivals. technologies.
The Justice Department is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to stop Apple from “using its control over app distribution to undermine cross-platform technologies such as super apps and cloud streaming apps” and to prevent them from from using “private APIs to undermine cross-platform technologies such as messaging, smartwatches and digital wallets” and from “using the terms and conditions of its contracts with developers, accessory manufacturers, consumers or others to obtain, maintain, extend or consolidate a monopoly “.
Apple responded via spokesperson Fred Sainz, who said:
This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that distinguish Apple products in highly competitive markets. If successful, this would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple, where hardware, software and services intersect. It would also set a dangerous precedent, giving government the power to exercise a decisive role in designing people’s technology. We believe this lawsuit is wrong in both fact and law and will defend ourselves vigorously.
Start a new Thread