Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ US Files Antitrust Lawsuit against Apple, Alleging iPhone Monopoly Adam Engst Here we go again. The US Justice Department, 15 states, and the District of Columbia have [1]filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of violating antitrust laws to maintain an illegal iPhone monopoly. The lawsuit focuses on five areas: super apps, cloud streaming game services, messaging apps, smartwatches, and digital wallets, arguing that Apple explicitly took steps to prevent other companies from competing with Apple on the iPhone platform. Apple's stance has long been that it restricts what third parties can do on the iPhone platform to protect users. Some of the lawsuit's arguments are more compelling than others, such as those related to cloud gaming. Apple's claims that allowing an app that could stream multiple games would be a security risk always seemed overblown, and in January 2024, [2]Apple opened up to streaming game services. It wouldn't seem that additional remedies would be necessary here. Similarly, restricting tap-to-pay payments using the iPhone's NFC chip to Apple Pay seems to have been purely a business decision'Apple takes a cut of all Apple Pay transactions'since [3]Apple now says it will 'provide third-party developers in the European Economic Area with an option that will enable their users to make NFC contactless payments from within their iOS apps, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.' If it can be done in Europe, it could also happen in the US. In other cases, the lawsuit's arguments seem more problematic, such as when it accuses Apple of blocking super apps like the Chinese version of WeChat, which offers nearly 1.3 billion users messaging capabilities, digital payments, an app ecosystem, livestreaming, location services, and more. Given the current tension surrounding TikTok's privacy abuses and Chinese ownership, it's awkward to argue in favor of inviting Asian super apps like WeChat into the US. More generally, apps that attempt to integrate too many unrelated functions usually do many of them poorly. The lawsuit also calls out Messages, which Apple privileges for SMS messages, and accuses Apple of a degraded SMS experience with unencrypted conversations, grainy videos, and a lack of typing indicators. Indeed, third-party apps can't send or receive SMS messages (I had to check, too'it's not a thought that had ever crossed my mind), but it's hard to blame Apple for the primitive nature of SMS/MMS and carrier restrictions on file sizes. The suit also criticizes Apple for identifying SMS conversations with green bubbles'would it be better if there was no way to tell that an SMS conversation lacked certain features? Also, Apple has said it will support RCS, the next standard in carrier-level messaging (see '[4]Apple to Support RCS in Messages Next Year,' 17 November 2023), so criticisms here seem misplaced. Some of the lawsuit's harshest words are reserved for the Apple Watch but seem to get cause and effect backward. No one buys an expensive smartphone to be compatible with their less-expensive smartwatch'it's the other way around. Of course, it's in Apple's interests to make devices that work exceptionally well together, and that's especially true in the case of a smartwatch that can do relatively little on its own. Overall, though, the complaints in the lawsuit aren't misinformed or necessarily even wrong. Apple is all about platform lock-in. That's an aspect of Apple's tight integration between devices, apps, and services. There's a reason 'it just works' has become a catchphrase in the Apple world (even if it's often used ironically when things don't work). On the developer side, it's hard to resist the massive size of the iPhone user base, even when Apple's restrictions make it infeasible to develop certain kinds of solutions. We can debate whether Apple should do this or that, but nothing Apple has done violates any laws'unless the company is deemed a monopoly. The lawsuit claims that Apple's iPhone market share by revenue in the US is 70% of the 'performance smartphone market' and over 65% of the overall smartphone market. Those statistics will come under scrutiny. Apple's market share by revenue is higher than Android's in large part because iPhones are more expensive. The [5]market share of users is much more equal, with Statstista saying that the iPhone holds 54% of the market share compared to Android's 45%. Even more telling is the [6]iPhone's global market share, which Statista puts at 20.1%. That makes Apple foremost in the global smartphone market by manufacturer (Samsung is second with 19.4%), but it is far behind in platform, given Android's nearly 80% share. (Are there any other smartphone operating systems of any import?) The other awkward part of the lawsuit claiming that users have been harmed by Apple's monopolistic actions with the iPhone is that people like their iPhones. Even if [7]Apple's claims of 99% customer satisfaction are overblown, independent reports show the iPhone as having an extremely high 81% customer satisfaction index. Sure, no one would complain if iPhones cost less, but in a world where inexpensive Android smartphones are readily accessible, the only way a premium-priced product like the iPhone could rise to a dominant position is by offering a compelling value proposition. Apple will undoubtedly fight this lawsuit to the bitter end, so we can look forward to years of legal wrangling. Perhaps an antitrust lawsuit was inevitable, given the power of the tech giants and the amount of money sloshing around in the tech industry. Nevertheless, just as with the EU's recent ruling (see '[8]The EU Forces Open Apple's Walled Garden,' 29 January 2024), it feels as though Apple brought this on itself through arrogance and refusal to play nice with developers. References 1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl 2. https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f1v8pyay 3. https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/19/24043965/apple-iphone-nfc-payments-open-up-third-party-developers-european-union-antitrust 4. https://tidbits.com/2023/11/17/apple-to-support-rcs-in-messages-next-year/ 5. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held-by-smartphone-platforms-in-the-united-states 6. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271492/global-market-share-held-by-leading-smartphone-vendors/ 7. https://www.perfectrec.com/posts/is-apple-making-implausible-iphone-satisfaction-claims 8. https://tidbits.com/2024/01/29/the-eu-forces-open-apples-walled-garden/ .