Jason SnellJust posted on Six Colors: U.S. versus Apple: A first reaction
https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/03/u-s-versus-apple-a-first-reaction/
Nick Heer@jsnell “DoJ Connected Universe” made me laugh.
@nickheer I can't decide if they're right and Microsoft would've crushed the iPod, or if they're just high on their own supply, but I applaud the moxie!
MarkV@jsnell “ I’m impressed that the DoJ would try to place its current case within the larger DoJ Connected Universe.”
😂😂😂
Warner Crocker@jsnell Good early inning analysis.
Leon Cowle@jsnell "but I’m impressed that the DoJ would try to place its current case within the larger DoJ Connected Universe.”
👨🍳😘🤌 for that sentence, Jason.
Eric Eggert@jsnell Came here with praise for the “DoJ Connected Universe”, but I see others have already done that. Thanks for the overview of the issue. It’ll be fun to see how this shakes out, compared the the DMA stuff.
@yatil Nothing makes me happier than people liking my dumb jokes
Jon_Alper@jsnell Great piece! I also worry the blue pols actions here just feed the right’s (disingenuous) narrative about regulation in general.
Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊)@jsnell I'm with you on a lot of this, but as much as I adore Apple TV+ shows, I find it obnoxious that TV+ is prioritized and advertised so heavily compared to other streaming services. Clearly Apple favors its own content…which is its right in the abstract, but is that acceptable if Apple can be shown to be a platform monopolist?
@jaredwhite I think the claim on Apple's control of the TV app on the iPhone is probably so small as to be irrelevant; and the Apple TV is not alleged to be a monopoly. It seems like a loser of an argument all around. I'm surprised it's in there at all.
@jsnell I think it's relevant. Apple TV is an "accessory" to the iPhone market if you will—made interesting due to the iPhone's halo effect. I don't think the claim is that Apple TV hardware/services/content = monopoly, but that it's an attempt by a monopoly to succeed in new markets through ecosystem expansion. iPhone is the poison pill which taints other Apple businesses because they're all connected—by Apple!
(Unlike Messages though, TV+ is on other hardware platforms. So there's that.)
@jaredwhite I don't think I buy that argument, and the filing is specifically talking about controlling speech. It's farfetched at best - more of a line of ooga-booga scares about what other evils Apple might do with its power
@jsnell I do agree with you regarding the controlling speech argument—that does seem fairly nonsensical on the face of it.
amonduin@jaredwhite @jsnell Id argue that the poison is actually the shift to services revenue. When they were more focused on hardware revenue from iPhone they seemed less inclined to engage in scummy anti-competitive practices aimed at competing services.
@jsnell It seems like long time Apple fans have a hard time recognizing that Apple of today is not Apple circa 2000. Apple demonstrably is one of the most powerful and influential tech companies in the world today. Trying to play cute with marketshare numbers is not going to fly forever. If the DOJ ends up losing do you think they'll just give up? Or will they pressure the government for more modern legislation that will address the changes in the way tech companies behave?
@markv How many makes a significant number? Anyway, it takes all kinds and that's definitely one thread of the coverage, though by no means the only one
@jsnell I shouldn’t have said “significant”. It’s been the usual tone over at 9to5 and it’s also usually Gruber’s take. You & Dan, as well as John from MacStories tend to be more balanced imo. Apologies if it felt like an attack, wasn’t targeted at you specifically.
As an avid Apple customer myself, it riles me up a bit when I see people defend them with rose tinted glasses as “the good guys” rather then seeing them for a business like any other multi billion dollar company 🤷♂️
@amonduin I think if the government was capable of legislation they'd prefer it, the DoJ is very much limited by the lack of good, direct law here
Mingo 🦩 Hagen@jsnell I'm guessing the NFC thing is about if say Stripe wants to make a wallet competitor?
@mingo yes, but the examples given were “wallet competitors" and “innovations in banking apps” - the second one gets a heavy eyeroll from me
marlies 
@marlies @mingo If you think back to the origination of Apple Pay, the entire point was that a unified interface would be better for users, and it was. Bank apps are bad. Having to switch bank apps to use different cards is bad. There is a reason Apple Pay succeeded when previous attempts failed, and this is part of it.
Now, Apple never opening the APIs up, we can talk about, but it's clear why it was built this way--and it was positive for users.
@jsnell @mingo the UI problem of switching apps seems a solvable issue to me, the phone detects a payment terminal and shows me the apps that are registered to support it. Apple locking it down was not beneficial to me as a user. My bank (which has a good app - bank apps aren’t terrible everywhere) had contactless on Android for years but Apple didn’t enable Apple Pay for my country until 2019. I’ve used and replaced three iPhones between Apple Pay being announced and it being available here.
@marlies @mingo I'm not sure “you must enable NFC in a country" is covered by any regs
I get it, but in terms of the U.S. roll-out -- which is what this is about -- Apple Pay is the single thing that made contactless happen in the U.S., and I would argue it would not have worked if it had been an open API that banks could do whatever with.
@marlies @mingo the U.S. DoJ suggests it's some sort of nefarious plot by Apple, but it wasn't -- it was actually a good idea that was focused on getting it to work and letting users take advantage of tap to pay in their home market. Today the argument is different, though I can't really conceive of banking apps spurring any innovation
@jsnell @mingo banks elsewhere do this. Ask any EU citizen about banks like Revolut, Bunq, N26 etc but even a lot of the ‘legacy’ banks have innovative nice apps. Ask your friendly cohost @imyke about Monzo and others doing the same things in the UK. It’s not a problem inherent to banks, it’s a problem inherent to American banks.
@mingo @jsnell the fact fee negotiations were holding up the rollout for five years even tho the hardware was already in my phone (which wasn’t exactly sold as a loss leader) kind of supports the point it was Apple using or abusing its power to extract as much money as possible at the expense of the consumer.
@mingo @jsnell And I don’t credit them with it, my friends had functioning payments on Android phones with just as good an UI for years. There was no real innovation in Apple Pay, it was just momentum they brought with their market share in the US that convinced retailers there to get their act together and install capable terminals.
@jsnell @mingo i think that just comes down to the difference between innovating and popularizing/giving technological innovations momentum. Apple is extremely good at the latter and I will give them full credit for that. They’re also very good at the former but that’s not what they did in this case. They didn’t invent USB but we sure as hell wouldn’t have it on all of our devices without the iMac.
Francesco Marini@jsnell “Some arguments in the document seem silly” is quite an understatement, both for the “some” and for the “silly”…
@fmarini There's a whole spectrum from serious to silly, I haven't plotted it. Some are misguided, some are weak, some are genuinely ridiculous
@jsnell yeah, definitely.
I only quickly skimmed through the document, but the number of facepalms has been almost incredible. At the very least it reeks of a complete lack of understanding of technology and the market.
I only quickly skimmed through the document, but the number of facepalms has been almost incredible. At the very least it reeks of a complete lack of understanding of technology and the market.
Thomas Brand@jsnell this is great. Thank you.
Ryan Schmidt@jsnell one can be a satisfied Apple customer and still believe that the way Apple is operating is terrible for competition in the software industry, and be frustrated by the deeply shitty parts of their ecosystem
(((Jann Gobble)))🏳️🌈@jsnell My favorite HUGE HOLE (so far) that I can see Apple lawyers driving their Apple car right through... yes, that white VW van with the sidewalls:
Hudson@jsnell Really, you're holding up the Journal APIs as proof Apple is being more open?! 2 people use that app. Hooray! They're free!
@hpridham lots of people use the competitive apps that Apple didn't kneecap by withholding the journaling API, which was the point. They didn't used to launch apps with third party APIs attached. That's a change in behavior. If observing that makes you mad, I don't know what to tell you
@jsnell not mad just disappointed in you. In the future, note when something a token gesture at best. It has virtually no impact on Apple’s market share or income, so they took a flyer. It behoves you as a journalist to note when something is clearly being used as theater. In this case, distracting from real meaningful change on apps and APIs that impact ALL iOS users.
@jsnell I feel like there’s going to be a ton of back and forth, where a lot of charges might be dropped, but apple is reined in re it’s most egregious App Store practices. Honestly, if apple is to pride itself on its embrace of the humanities, they should hire political science/policy/governance experts for the App Store
Nasser Alwehaidah
Elthesensai@jsnell just to add if Apple doesn’t hold a monopoly over software distribution than care to share where I can purchase or download an emulator? There’s a couple of DOS programs I want to run for nostalgic reasons. As a long time Apple user I very happy that the DOJ as brought up this lawsuit. I’m hoping that my iOS device will finally work like my macOS desktop.
João Beleza Freire@jsnell “I could create a list of Apple behaviors that I consider to be anticompetitive and unfriendly to consumers, but many of them are barely touched on in this document.”
Please do? I’d love a full article about this
@letra maybe sometime, a lot of it has come up in all the DMA discussion. Preventing external links or even admitting external links exist, demanding 30% IAP for digital goods it sells itself without that markup, arbitrarily blocking classes of apps without allowing sideloading...
Paul Koenig@jsnell The DOJ is going back to its successful strategy of ignoring reality in favor of an idealized vision from the iBooks case. Still not getting how the incentives for retailers to discount physical books which largely center around the need to make space for books that will sell faster or as a loss leader to get people walking past the remainder tables apply to ebooks.
Shad@jsnell Could you please expain this claim: “But true super apps as they exist in other markets just aren’t a thing here, no doubt in part because Apple doesn’t allow them on iOS.” This is a quote from a Verge article today but I have seen it a lot of places. How are “superapps” allowed in China but not in the US? I don’t see Apple having different policies, so I think this claim is garbage, but maybe I am missing something?