WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday announced a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the tech giant of engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones that boxes out competitors, stifles innovation and keeps prices artificially high.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and leverages control over the iPhone to “engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct.”

“Apple has locked its consumers into the iPhone while locking its competitors out of the market,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Stalling the advancement of the very market it revolutionized, she said, it has “smothered an entire industry.”

Apple called the lawsuit “wrong on the facts and the law” and said it “will vigorously defend against it.”

AP Link



Nonsense! You can always buy an Android/Google-phone

The problem is that these ecosystems are years in the making. How is any company going to be able to enter this market and compete against that.

I'm no Apple fan, but what do they want Apple to do? Allow third party phones to utilize the Apple ecosystem on different software?

The lawsuit also states that non-Apple devices show up as green boxes in text messages, thus creating a sense of inequity because they don’t get the blue boxes that Apple users get…basically, it’s “unfair.”

I value the blue boxes, because I have confidence they actually got the message. SMS has been less reliable in my experience. Though I'm sure other's may have had better experiences in that regard.

Hey, lawyers gotta eat too.

 
Apple has announced the adoption of RCS (rich communication service) with iMessage, to be implemented in 2024. This should alleviate a lot of interoperability issues, as the other messaging vendors have already implemented it. Still going to have green bubbles, though, as I understand it.
 
RCS

I’m just grateful for the fact that the Dept. of Justice is addressing this crucial issue.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
I’m just grateful for the fact that the Dept. of Justice is addressing this crucial issue.

I’d rather they spend their time on this than more lawfare against conservatives. It might not be my preferred way that they spend tax dollars, but it’s not as bad as other things they’ve been doing.

Apple should have made their payments to The Big Guy……

quote:

Originally posted by JDHunz:
The lawsuit also states that non-Apple devices show up as green boxes in text messages, thus creating a sense of inequity because they don’t get the blue boxes that Apple users get…basically, it’s “unfair.”

The color of the message depends on how the message was sent. iMessages are blue. Anything sent via SMS is green. When you send an iMessage it shows you that the recipient received the message. If the recipient has read receipts turned on, it will show that the message was read. You can also edit a message before, or after it was read. It will always show edited and you can always see the edits.
SMS doesn’t have that capability as far as I know.
So the inferior due to green color, is true only because the green messages are sent on an inferior platform.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I value the blue boxes, because I have confidence they actually got the message. SMS has been less reliable in my experience. Though I'm sure other's may have had better experiences in that regard.

I wholeheartedly agree... Which is why Apple puts itself into these exact situations due to their targeted practices of stifling innovation.
I believe that everyone knows that the only reason there are issues with iOS to Android messaging (blue-box vs. green-box), is due to Apple downgrading the texts to SMS, to make communication more difficult between their devices and other manufacturer's devices.

It’s time for Apple to fix texting.

I find "monopolized" to be a massive over-statement. I never even considered Apple when I decided to get a smart phone.

Of course I knew they were out there, but there are at least a dozen alternatives for manufacturers.

quote:

Originally posted by American Pit Bull:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I value the blue boxes, because I have confidence they actually got the message. SMS has been less reliable in my experience. Though I'm sure other's may have had better experiences in that regard.

I wholeheartedly agree... Which is why Apple puts itself into these exact situations due to their targeted practices of stifling innovation.
I believe that everyone knows that the only reason there are issues with iOS to Android messaging (blue-box vs. green-box), is due to Apple downgrading the texts to SMS, to make communication more difficult between their devices and other manufacturer's devices.

It’s time for Apple to fix texting.

False argument. There are other apps that will run on an iPhone that can be utilized for texting w/ Android phones (AND iPhones!) that will work just fine and provide all the features the Apple haters desire (demand?) if they so choose.

Generally iPhone/Apple users just listen & follow along with whatever Apple thinks is best for them, so in this case, the Android users are blaming Apple because the iPhone users don't adopt/utilize a better APP for texting, and the Android user's 'experience' is diminished.

Safari is a shitty browser, and we hear ALL THE TIME about Apple users having issues embedding YouTube content, things NOT displaying properly, etc etc, but there are other browsers they 'could' choose to use such as Brave, and yet they do not!

^^^^^^
Signal is nifty!

Para’s thread:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...600080705#5600080705

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:

quote:

Originally posted by American Pit Bull:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I value the blue boxes, because I have confidence they actually got the message. SMS has been less reliable in my experience. Though I'm sure other's may have had better experiences in that regard.

I wholeheartedly agree... Which is why Apple puts itself into these exact situations due to their targeted practices of stifling innovation.
I believe that everyone knows that the only reason there are issues with iOS to Android messaging (blue-box vs. green-box), is due to Apple downgrading the texts to SMS, to make communication more difficult between their devices and other manufacturer's devices.

It’s time for Apple to fix texting.

False argument. There are other apps that will run on an iPhone that can be utilized for texting w/ Android phones (AND iPhones!) that will work just and provide all the features the Apple haters desire (demand?) if they so choose.

Yes, one can jump through hoops to communicate with the latest tech advances, if they so choose... Apple is the only device manufacturer that makes their following have to go to such lengths to communicate utilizing modern messaging platforms.

I think that would fall under the definition of "Stifle".

I suspect this has more to do with Apple Store policies than anything inherent in the marketing of the phones themselves. They severely restrict certain apps and features that compete with their own software offerings, disallowing access to the Store in the name of "security" when it is actually intended to suppress competition. This results in fewer choices for their users. But, yes, it is kind of a BS lawsuit, Apple's deep pockets may have some relevance...or, perhaps, in an election year they want to be able to say, "see we don't just go after Conservative companies."

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
Apple should have made their payments to The Big Guy……

Just another shake down. Government theft with a convenient excuse.

If only Apple had some competition so everyone wasn't forced to buy an iPhone...

Apple is a lefty organization so they must have pissed someone off for this to happen.

The other thing that was brought up was Apple making it harder for developers to create apps for the system and regulating those apps. This is exactly why I chose to go to Apple, this keeps viruses and wonky apps from polluting their ecostructure. Open source apps can suck and carry all kind of hidden things I do not want on my phone and computers. I know Apple is watching me but feel it is better to know which enemy I am dealing with than the one I have no idea whom it may be.
I could care less whether my screen shows green or blue as long as it gets to where I sent it.