5 ms·

Apple's iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly

18 points by redbell 3y ago

tanepiper 3y ago
Did Apple write this?
- bell-cot 3y ago
  I doubt it. The author makes a good point. Microsoft's Windows, having reduced the competition to ~3% market share, was pretty d*mn obviously a monopoly. Vs. competitors to Apple's iPhone still have ~36% of the U.S. and ~77% of the global market. (And with current political currents in China, the latter number may be headed for an upswing.) However sincere the feelings of Apple-haters (or Apple-dominance-haters, or Apple-tactics-haters, or Apple-30%-cut-haters, or Apple-arbitrary-decisions-haters, ...), and however many good points they make - the actual legal case here relies on convincing a rather cold-hearted and skeptical old judge that Apple has a monopoly.
  - beardyw 3y ago
    You say "I doubt it" but offer nothing to support that view and instead rehash the arguments in the article.
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      Assuming that I can neither subpoena records from Apple nor TC, nor hack their systems to obtain data on secretive ghost-writing agreements between them, what sort of "support" are you thinking that I should provide?
      - beardyw 3y ago
        Sorry, I understand, you doubt it for no reason.
        bell-cot 3y ago
        I also doubt that Walter Mondale's grandchildren wrote the article. Might you have evidence to the contrary?
    - neodymiumphish 3y ago
      It says Matt Rosoff wrote it. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
      - isleyaardvark 3y ago
        Comments like "Did Apple write this?" don't deserve serious engagement and I'm sad to see that kind of comment isn't in the greys here.
  - _mlbt 3y ago
    I'm not convinced that Apple's dominance in the US is a result of anything other than simply producing a better product. I was an Android user for a decade and recently switched when the iPhone 12 came out. This is going to read like an ad, but within 48 hours I realized that barring Apple really screwing things up, I was never going back to Android. It's simply better at almost everything I want a smart phone to do. Also, the integration with the rest of the ecosystem is superb. There is nothing else like it on the market. I'll admit that there are things that Android does better. The biggest being the variety of hardware available, such as folding screens, gaming phones with built-in liquid cooling, or phones that work with styli for drawing and taking notes. However, when I consider the whole package, Apple is the one that will be getting my money for the foreseeable future. Also the whole iMessage blue versus green bubble controversy is overblown. Nobody above the age of 18 cares. They may joke about it, but at the end of the day you just use something like WhatsApp or Discord if you need more features than what green bubbles in iMessage can provide.
    - neodymiumphish 3y ago
      I had the exact same experience switching to the 15 Pro Max last month. I was adamantly anti-iOS and pro-Android, using Samsung’s latest flagships (S10 Ultra, S21 Ultra, Fold4), until our carrier had a pretty amazing trade-in deal and I said screw it, let’s give iPhone a shot. It’s just so much better. Apps work better, focus modes and Shortcuts are incredible, sharing contact and experiences (SharePlay, shared albums and reminders lists, etc) are just a perfect experience. The Watch is also orders of magnitude better than Android Wear (or WearOS, whatever its latest name is).
    - realusername 3y ago
      To each their own, I had to use one for a year to not create more ewaste and it's one the most buggy experience I ever had, I was to lazy to reformat it after one last breaking bug and I switched back. I find the software stack looks like hold together with duck tape. And iMessage lost in the EU so that never been a selling point for me. I never liked their software practices but I left them because of the software quality actually.
  - toast0 3y ago
    > the actual legal case here relies on convincing a rather cold-hearted and skeptical old judge that Apple has a monopoly. Monopoly here is legal jargon for market power. Apple doesn't need to literally hold the deed to the three phone properties, which would entitle them to charge twice the rent or build houses and hotels. The global market provides interesting background information, but also doesn't have much weight for US anti-trust. In the roughly 60/40 market that we have in the US, both OS developers likely exhibit strong market power and their related conduct is up for review. Do they use their market power in mobile phones to further distort the market for mobile phones in prohibited ways? Do they use their market power in mobile phones to distort other adjacent markets in prohibited ways? Personally, I don't think DoJ is going to have a problem showing market power. It's clear that Apple has market power in many countries, including the US. There certainly are many countries where it doesn't, but lack of global market power isn't very relevant. I don't know whether DoJ will be able to show abuse of the market power. IMHO, the best of the five examples they presented is smartwatches; did they establish dominance in the smartwatch category by limiting deep integration to only their smartwatches, and is that prohibited tying? But we'll see how that holds up at trial. Cases against Google are more complex because Android allows significant manufacturer customization, so Android the OS has 40% market share, but Google the seller of phones has much less. And Google allows software developers to do a lot more with apps, for better and worse.
    - nodamage 3y ago
      > Monopoly here is legal jargon for market power. Market power and monopoly power are not the same thing. I will let the DOJ explain: Market power and monopoly power are related but not the same. The Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,"(8) and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition."(9) The Supreme Court has held that "[m]onopoly power under § 2 requires, of course, something greater than market power under § 1."(10) Precisely where market power becomes so great as to constitute what the law deems to be monopoly power is largely a matter of degree rather than one of kind. Clearly, however, monopoly power requires, at a minimum, a substantial degree of market power. https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-2 https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol... > Personally, I don't think DoJ is going to have a problem showing market power. For the type of violation they have alleged (monopolization and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act) they will need to show Apple holds monopoly power, or a dangerous probability of achieving it. At its core, section 2 makes it illegal to acquire or maintain monopoly power through improper means. The long-standing requirement for monopolization is both "(1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-1 https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol...
hislaziness 3y ago
The articles states the case is for apple's monopoly in the premium phone market. Yet it compares the market share with low cost android phones.
hnburnsy 3y ago
I wonder if Google and Apple are regretting killing Windows Phone, a third viable competitor would have taken away a lot of antitrust heat. Still hoping an alternative emerges someday.
karmakaze 3y ago
> The suit alleges that the company has a monopoly in the premium smartphone market and uses a variety of illegal tactics to perpetuate that monopoly. > Leaving aside the details of those tactics and their legality... Before the iPod, Apple had a monopoly in nothing. That was translated to the iPhone and building a closed ecosystem around it with engineered incompatibilities. It was mostly these tactics of questionable legality that leads to the situation at hand. It's one thing to deal with a current monopoly and see to break it up. But recognizing how that happened and preventing the means of becoming and maintaining a monopoly should be dealt with directly, rather than dealing with the consequences (of allowing the tactics) in each case.
fargle 3y ago
> Apples iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly Very true. It's more like if Windows, Intel, and IBM were the same company. And you couldn't buy compatible hardware from anyone else. And you couldn't buy their hardware without their bundled OS, apps and browser. And they didn't just bundle their preferred OS, apps, and browser, but prevented you from changing or removing them. And furthermore, would not let you install any other software except what they approved of. And, of course, would not approve anything that competed with their own products or that they just randomly didn't like. Oh, and if it broke, you had to buy the parts only from them and use their repair service. And if 3rd party repair is legislatively mandated, they just made compliance as worthless as legally (or not) possible, and just intentionally made repairs just about impossible anyhow. And we all thought bill gates and the halloween memos, etc. were peak "evil".
ahaseeb 3y ago
I am not sure what can be classified as monopoly as it's pretty subjective. Is Tesla a monopoly in EV Cars ( or cars in general). I used to kinda anti apple but realized that post switching to iPhone 5, never went back tbh. Same with Mac and iPAD. It's certainly a better ecosystem but that's what MOAT is. Companies spend $$$ to build the MOAT. If a company can build a better product, they deserve to be on top. I however have another issue with Apple with Apple Package. They discourage smaller carriers to work with them. To explain further - Apple don't allow iMessage, FaceTime, Visual Voice mail if you don't commit to buying a specific amount of devices. This kills smaller businesses. It's like Coca Cola not selling you their product if you're not walmart. You'll not become Walmart till you sell products but you're not allowed to get access to products that big retailers have. I think the case is positioned in a way that Apple should win

18 points by redbell 3y ago

tanepiper 3y ago

Did Apple write this?

bell-cot 3y ago
I doubt it. The author makes a good point. Microsoft's Windows, having reduced the competition to ~3% market share, was pretty d*mn obviously a monopoly. Vs. competitors to Apple's iPhone still have ~36% of the U.S. and ~77% of the global market. (And with current political currents in China, the latter number may be headed for an upswing.) However sincere the feelings of Apple-haters (or Apple-dominance-haters, or Apple-tactics-haters, or Apple-30%-cut-haters, or Apple-arbitrary-decisions-haters, ...), and however many good points they make - the actual legal case here relies on convincing a rather cold-hearted and skeptical old judge that Apple has a monopoly.
- beardyw 3y ago
  You say "I doubt it" but offer nothing to support that view and instead rehash the arguments in the article.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Assuming that I can neither subpoena records from Apple nor TC, nor hack their systems to obtain data on secretive ghost-writing agreements between them, what sort of "support" are you thinking that I should provide?
    - beardyw 3y ago
      Sorry, I understand, you doubt it for no reason.
      - bell-cot 3y ago
        I also doubt that Walter Mondale's grandchildren wrote the article. Might you have evidence to the contrary?
  - neodymiumphish 3y ago
    It says Matt Rosoff wrote it. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
    - isleyaardvark 3y ago
      Comments like "Did Apple write this?" don't deserve serious engagement and I'm sad to see that kind of comment isn't in the greys here.
- _mlbt 3y ago
  I'm not convinced that Apple's dominance in the US is a result of anything other than simply producing a better product. I was an Android user for a decade and recently switched when the iPhone 12 came out. This is going to read like an ad, but within 48 hours I realized that barring Apple really screwing things up, I was never going back to Android. It's simply better at almost everything I want a smart phone to do. Also, the integration with the rest of the ecosystem is superb. There is nothing else like it on the market. I'll admit that there are things that Android does better. The biggest being the variety of hardware available, such as folding screens, gaming phones with built-in liquid cooling, or phones that work with styli for drawing and taking notes. However, when I consider the whole package, Apple is the one that will be getting my money for the foreseeable future. Also the whole iMessage blue versus green bubble controversy is overblown. Nobody above the age of 18 cares. They may joke about it, but at the end of the day you just use something like WhatsApp or Discord if you need more features than what green bubbles in iMessage can provide.
  - neodymiumphish 3y ago
    I had the exact same experience switching to the 15 Pro Max last month. I was adamantly anti-iOS and pro-Android, using Samsung’s latest flagships (S10 Ultra, S21 Ultra, Fold4), until our carrier had a pretty amazing trade-in deal and I said screw it, let’s give iPhone a shot. It’s just so much better. Apps work better, focus modes and Shortcuts are incredible, sharing contact and experiences (SharePlay, shared albums and reminders lists, etc) are just a perfect experience. The Watch is also orders of magnitude better than Android Wear (or WearOS, whatever its latest name is).
  - realusername 3y ago
    To each their own, I had to use one for a year to not create more ewaste and it's one the most buggy experience I ever had, I was to lazy to reformat it after one last breaking bug and I switched back. I find the software stack looks like hold together with duck tape. And iMessage lost in the EU so that never been a selling point for me. I never liked their software practices but I left them because of the software quality actually.
- toast0 3y ago
  > the actual legal case here relies on convincing a rather cold-hearted and skeptical old judge that Apple has a monopoly. Monopoly here is legal jargon for market power. Apple doesn't need to literally hold the deed to the three phone properties, which would entitle them to charge twice the rent or build houses and hotels. The global market provides interesting background information, but also doesn't have much weight for US anti-trust. In the roughly 60/40 market that we have in the US, both OS developers likely exhibit strong market power and their related conduct is up for review. Do they use their market power in mobile phones to further distort the market for mobile phones in prohibited ways? Do they use their market power in mobile phones to distort other adjacent markets in prohibited ways? Personally, I don't think DoJ is going to have a problem showing market power. It's clear that Apple has market power in many countries, including the US. There certainly are many countries where it doesn't, but lack of global market power isn't very relevant. I don't know whether DoJ will be able to show abuse of the market power. IMHO, the best of the five examples they presented is smartwatches; did they establish dominance in the smartwatch category by limiting deep integration to only their smartwatches, and is that prohibited tying? But we'll see how that holds up at trial. Cases against Google are more complex because Android allows significant manufacturer customization, so Android the OS has 40% market share, but Google the seller of phones has much less. And Google allows software developers to do a lot more with apps, for better and worse.
  - nodamage 3y ago
    > Monopoly here is legal jargon for market power. Market power and monopoly power are not the same thing. I will let the DOJ explain: Market power and monopoly power are related but not the same. The Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,"(8) and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition."(9) The Supreme Court has held that "[m]onopoly power under § 2 requires, of course, something greater than market power under § 1."(10) Precisely where market power becomes so great as to constitute what the law deems to be monopoly power is largely a matter of degree rather than one of kind. Clearly, however, monopoly power requires, at a minimum, a substantial degree of market power. https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-2 https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol... > Personally, I don't think DoJ is going to have a problem showing market power. For the type of violation they have alleged (monopolization and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act) they will need to show Apple holds monopoly power, or a dangerous probability of achieving it. At its core, section 2 makes it illegal to acquire or maintain monopoly power through improper means. The long-standing requirement for monopolization is both "(1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-1 https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol...

hislaziness 3y ago

The articles states the case is for apple's monopoly in the premium phone market. Yet it compares the market share with low cost android phones.

hnburnsy 3y ago

I wonder if Google and Apple are regretting killing Windows Phone, a third viable competitor would have taken away a lot of antitrust heat. Still hoping an alternative emerges someday.

karmakaze 3y ago

> The suit alleges that the company has a monopoly in the premium smartphone market and uses a variety of illegal tactics to perpetuate that monopoly. > Leaving aside the details of those tactics and their legality... Before the iPod, Apple had a monopoly in nothing. That was translated to the iPhone and building a closed ecosystem around it with engineered incompatibilities. It was mostly these tactics of questionable legality that leads to the situation at hand. It's one thing to deal with a current monopoly and see to break it up. But recognizing how that happened and preventing the means of becoming and maintaining a monopoly should be dealt with directly, rather than dealing with the consequences (of allowing the tactics) in each case.

fargle 3y ago

> Apples iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly Very true. It's more like if Windows, Intel, and IBM were the same company. And you couldn't buy compatible hardware from anyone else. And you couldn't buy their hardware without their bundled OS, apps and browser. And they didn't just bundle their preferred OS, apps, and browser, but prevented you from changing or removing them. And furthermore, would not let you install any other software except what they approved of. And, of course, would not approve anything that competed with their own products or that they just randomly didn't like. Oh, and if it broke, you had to buy the parts only from them and use their repair service. And if 3rd party repair is legislatively mandated, they just made compliance as worthless as legally (or not) possible, and just intentionally made repairs just about impossible anyhow. And we all thought bill gates and the halloween memos, etc. were peak "evil".

ahaseeb 3y ago

I am not sure what can be classified as monopoly as it's pretty subjective. Is Tesla a monopoly in EV Cars ( or cars in general). I used to kinda anti apple but realized that post switching to iPhone 5, never went back tbh. Same with Mac and iPAD. It's certainly a better ecosystem but that's what MOAT is. Companies spend $$$ to build the MOAT. If a company can build a better product, they deserve to be on top. I however have another issue with Apple with Apple Package. They discourage smaller carriers to work with them. To explain further - Apple don't allow iMessage, FaceTime, Visual Voice mail if you don't commit to buying a specific amount of devices. This kills smaller businesses. It's like Coca Cola not selling you their product if you're not walmart. You'll not become Walmart till you sell products but you're not allowed to get access to products that big retailers have. I think the case is positioned in a way that Apple should win