Well-known journalist Mark Gurman criticized the US Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple, drawing attention to strange and far-fetched claims, while in his opinion the company has enough real shortcomings.
Gurman points out that despite the carefully maintained image of a customer-oriented company, Apple is scrupulous in financial matters and behaves harshly with both suppliers and developers, and also jealously guards the closed ecosystem, forcing the use of its own services and harshly suppressing any attempts to compete with its own. products.
According to Mark, the greatest flaw in the US Department of Justice's claim is its weak evidence base. Thus, the lawsuit claims that the main reason for the popularity of the iPhone is the difficulty of switching to another smartphone. The lawsuit also notes that Apple is allegedly trying to harm automakers with a new version of CarPlay that takes up even more space on the dashboard, but no one is forcing either manufacturers or buyers to use this service.
The US Department of Justice has five main complaints against Apple:
The company prevents the development of “super apps” – programs like the Chinese WeChat, which combines several mini-applications. Apple does not support cloud services, such as game streaming services, that operate in its own data centers and send playback data to iPhone. Apple prevents third-party apps from sending SMS, but its own messaging software doesn't work with Android. The iPhone lacks full support for third-party smartwatches, including the ability to receive notifications. The company does not allow third-party apps to use Tap to Pay technology to accept private payments.
As for super apps, in January Apple expanded their capabilities, making it easier to combine several mini-apps into one large one, and no one has ever banned WeChat. According to Gurman, super apps failed in the United States not because of Apple, but simply because they did not take root in American culture. He also notes that only large companies can develop them, and super-applications themselves harm small developers. “Who are you fighting here?” – asks the Gourmet.
Apple is also accused of preventing large companies like Microsoft and Nvidia from releasing their own apps with access to a variety of cloud products. This is true, but at the beginning of the year Apple allowed such applications. And the Ministry of Justice has a problem with SMS: the company announced support for the Rich Communication Services (RMS) protocol replacing SMS in iOS 18, which will be released at the end of 2024, last year, and this should eliminate problems with interoperability. True, there is still no talk of sending SMS with third-party applications, and iMessage is unlikely to appear on Android.
However, Gurman notes that many, if not all, of these changes are due precisely to regulatory pressure and fears of further lawsuits around the world. In addition, the Ministry of Justice may present other claims, which lawyers reserve for further proceedings.
The last two points, according to Gurman, are very reasonable. The iPhone operating system is indeed configured to use devices from its own ecosystem, and despite numerous claims about protecting confidential information, Apple is simply trying to sell as many of its own products as possible and retain consumers. According to Gurman, Apple really needs to pay more attention to supporting third-party devices, including smartwatches.
The same arguments about privacy and data security are always heard when it comes to NFC and competition with Apple Pay, although it is clear that the company is simply trying to maintain one of its profit channels. However, under pressure from regulators, Apple opened access to NFC in Europe, and in the USA, work in this direction is also already underway. The gourmand is perplexed as to what the US authorities are trying to achieve – besides a huge fine.
“It’s unlikely that the US Department of Justice’s lawsuit can be called a good tool for making changes. Not only is the lawsuit itself inconsistent, but with its baseless accusations it also distracts attention from the real issues. This is a risky strategy, given Apple's virtually unlimited budget, army of lawyers and lobbyists, and a very intransigent head of the corporation. However, regardless of the outcome of the legal battle, Apple will have to change its policies in the coming years,” he concludes.
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