The lawsuit caps years of regulatory scrutiny of Apple’s wildly popular suite of devices and services, which have fueled its growth into a nearly $3 trillion public company.

The department joined 16 states and the District of Columbia to file a significant challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing in an 88-page lawsuit that the company had violated antitrust laws with practices that were intended to keep customers reliant on their iPhones and less likely to switch to a competing device. The tech giant prevented other companies from offering applications that compete with Apple products like its digital wallet, which could diminish the value of the iPhone, and hurts consumers and smaller companies that compete with it, the government said.

  •  emptyfish   ( @emptyfish@beehaw.org ) 
    2•2 months ago

    I think side loading is an important point. You can even side load apps on a Mac so Apple is going to have a difficult time arguing this one. It’s fine to not allow it by default and adding the extra steps to enable it.

    I’ll admit I am torn on this. Before the iPhone really took off in the US the mobile carriers were in control. Does anyone remember having to pay for GPS and navigation and similar things through Verizon or whoever as add-ons? I do not miss those days, Apple (and Google) have done a lot to improve mobile experience since then.