That's your opinion. That is not what's supported by our current technology/copyright/intellectual property-related laws.
Please be clear about that.
That is your opinion. Please be clear about that.
Currently, what Apple is doing violates EU and US antitrust laws. It's not a matter of what the user wants. It's a matter of Apple abusing its market position.
Please provide legal documents equivocally stating this.
It's the followup laws broadening the Sherman Antitrust Act that Apple violates. The amendments to the Sherman Act target anti-competitive behavior that results in market distortive effects, even in the absence of a monopoly. This includes price-fixing, collusion, and using leverage in one market to interfere with the market dynamics of another (usually smaller) market (see, e.g., Microsoft). There is at least one landmark case in which minor market participants were found to have violated the antitrust laws because their collusion would have anticompetitive effects even though their combined market share was less than half of the market, though the case dates to a more active time in antitrust jurisprudence.
Apple is no stranger to anti-competitive behavior; they are in fact the banner case for the last big antitrust case...which similarly did not involve a monopoly of any sort. (The book price-fixing case.)
The majority of antitrust claims are brought under the Sherman Act. Apple's ebook price fixing case was brought under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
All of Epic's federal claims against Apple are alleged violations of the Sherman Act.
Sort of. There are two possible avenues of attack here against Apple. And it depends on how the market is defined.
1: if the "market" is defined as you have, which is a "monopoly on apple services", then it absolutely true that Apple does have a monopoly on the specific market as defined by "Apple services", and I would accept 10 to 1 betting odds on that.
BUT, I think it is a bit of a stretch that the "market" will be defined that narrowly. Instead I think that the market will be defined as the smartphone market share of the USA.
2: If the market is defined as the smartphone market, in the USA, then the argument will be that Apple has control of ~50% of the market, in a 2 entity duopoly. It is a common misconception, that anti-trust law only applies in cases, of a overwhelming singular monopoly. Instead, anti-trust law, applies even in cases where there is not a singular monopoly, and the company in question only has significant market power.
Controlling 50% of the market share, is a bit on the edge of whether anti-trust law applies, or does not apply, as according to government guidance. So the case is far from a slam dunk, and I think that there will be interesting arguments brought up in court.
But, even though Apple has less market share than, say Microsoft did, when Microsoft lost their anti-trust case, I think that Apple's actions are significantly more restrictive than Microsoft's was, and thus this contributing factor will push them over the edge into losing the case.
I expect that this case will be a landmark case, that will determine future court actions, and will be even more significant than the microsoft case was.
Similar antitrust violations of the same nature: iMusic vs Spotify, iChat vs Hey/other chat programs, Apple Webkit vs all other browsers.
I would have included Apple Pay but in that instance Apple lost, largely because their actions in other markets made it extremely undesirable for merchants and payment processors to get behind Apple's vision of Apple Pay in which Apple skimmed X% for providing absolutely no value to the transaction. In fact, so many retailers found Apple to be an undesirable partner that a number of major retailers disabled Apple Pay integration on their NFC-capable payment terminals. For example, most Kroger locations (like Ralphs) take Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Garmin Pay, and most other app-based NFC payment methods...but not Apple Pay. (Apple's situation is similar to American Express, which also charges significantly higher rates to retailers than its competitors, but unlike Apple, Amex actually processes transactions and theoretically provides valule to retailers, just not enough to justify its Appleesque rates.)
And, likewise, Apple, as the platform owner, should be able to deny access whatever software they want.
You can of course, jailbreak your iphone, or install PWA's that work.
Afterall, you just paid for the car, they still own the software that controls the engine.
Maybe just don’t buy that car then?
They do this to an extent already.
Aftermarket ECU Tunes can often invalidate your warranty.
Most OEM infotainment headunits are not user upgradable.
GPS Maps must be refreshed through the dealer.
In the US there is a governor that limits how fast a car can go.
Android is by far the most dominate mobile platform worldwide.
And you can. You just need to bypass Apple's security mechanisms.
Could one not argue that you are able to do this by jailbreaking your iOS-device, which the courts have deemed perfectly legal?
It seems to me that one owns the phone, but not necessarily the operating system it runs.
> (also not to mention Epic blatantly ripped off the success of PUBG when they switched Fortnite to be a Battle Royale game)
I think Epic did it better. That's why we don't give intellectual property rights to vague ideas like "100 players parachute into an island and shoot each other" or "after a certain amount of time a circle kills people outside of it". PUBG had their take -- super boring stakeouts to get hyper-realistic weapons. Fortnite had their take -- cartoony jumping around while you build forts. Players can choose which they want to play. (And, of course, there are like 8 billion other battle royales.)