The lawsuit seeks to upend a major part of Apple’s business.

The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ and states are accusing Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its iPhones.

  • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    In my opinion, the first quote doesn’t apply at all. Unless you can express how Apple is objectively superior?

    And Apple smartphone market share is at the higher end of your second quote. When all competitors are much lower, it may very well be that it is considered a monopoly. Though that’s literally what this case will determine.

    • horsey@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Apple has been more successful in the US, so by definition one could conclude they’ve done something better than competitors, whether it’s the products, timing, or something else about their business activities. People aren’t forced to buy iPhones any more than they are forced to buy Android.

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        By this same logic, on a global scale they are not dominant, so they can be argued to be a worse product, not superior. Therefore, their dominance on the US must be forced by coercive actions and categorized as a monopoly.

        • horsey@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Their actions in the US market and tastes of US customers are not necessarily the same as elsewhere in the world. If Apple concentrated marketing in the US, for example, that would be sufficient.

    • BmeBenji@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Objectively superior? Superior user experience is entirely subjective, but that is the main selling point of almost everything Apple has done in the last 17 years

      • RGB3x3@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        Marketing and reality are two different things. It’s definitely not a superior experience. When Apple’s stuff stops working, and it frequently does, the user has zero control to fix anything. Instead, they’re shoehorned into having no recourse other than to use Apple’s support, making them entirely dependent on the company in order to use their device.

        Apple purposely hamstrings the user experience to exert control over users.