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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

Does this mean the US government can finally start treating Apple the way it treats Microsoft, etc when it does clearly anti-competitive things? They get away with murder sometimes and no one bats an eye. Even here on HN, it's full of people that turn a blind eye because they have a love for Apple. Everything as spun as "looking out for the user" as if not using USB-C, locking out RCS, the "Apple Tax" etc are anything but anti-competitive behavior or straight gouging. Apple to this day is treated like it's late 90s 5% market share self. This isn't the 90s anymore.

Edit: Instantly being downvoted is ironic.

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People forget, but Apple faced a massive backlash in 2012 when it replaced the 30 pin connector with Lightning. People called it a ploy to make money on cables. Tons of e-waste.

USB C devices started shipping in 2015, so one can see why they didn't want to put themselves through that again.

Adopting USB C in fall 2023 iPhones is smart, because by now everyone has USB C cables already to charge their iPads, Macs, and Apple TV remotes (yes, even that recently switched from Lightning to USB C).

They are only adopting USB-C because the EU is forcing them to, and they still are intentionally limiting features on cables that don't meet their standards (ie paying a license to Apple.)

iPads transitioned to USB C in 2018 so I think this has been in the cards for a while. We'll have to see about the cables, I don't hate the idea of of an "actually works right" certification in the chaotic USB C universe.

I don't think not using USB-C qualifies as an antitrust issue.

It is appropriate to focus on the App Store commission, absolutely.

The "lightning port" is to block vendors from making universal products for its competitors while it lets Apple collect a licensing fee to use it, and it creates tons of needless e-Waste. No one cares though, at least not in the US.

Lightning is because it predates the USB-C connector.

None of your examples are “murders”. They have been using USB-C in pretty much every non-iphone device for years, switching on a whim to USB-C would have just left a bad taste in the users’ mouthes (and millions of unused cables). RCS is just google’s fake open-source proprietary protocol with terrible security, I really don’t want any of that thank you very much.

Apple Tax is as bad as any other similar app store — they would be stupid to bust it deliberately, thankfully we have governments that will do their job here. With the EU rules it will become great.

You just proved my point so many times over, it's hilarious. Typical turning a blind eye to Apple's wrongdoing. Apple was genius to create a cult around their product that is so blind to everything they do that screws anyone not in the cult. If Microsoft, Google, etc did some of this stuff you'd undoubtedly not support it, and you'd be right to.

Market share alone is not why MS was sued for anti-trust violations. It was how they got into that position, what they did to maintain that position, and what they did with that position.

This isn't in contradiction of what I just said. If anything, it supports it, because 55% isn't a "monopoly" but their behavior is anti-competitive, and they have been propelled into this position in part because of that behavior.

App store and browser, I'll agree with you on. The arguments around RCS vs iMessage and USB-C vs Lightning are very weak, though, and largely based on an ahistorical/atemporal understanding of the world. USB-C wasn't even available when Lightning came about so it wasn't an alternative until after the fact. You can be annoyed with the length of the transition, but it was inevitable and pretty much every Apple device but the iPhone has already transitioned as of last year (wireless mouse and keyboard still use it to charge, IIRC).

RCS was a poor solution to a carrier problem (non-carrier locked messaging platforms let people move more easily between carriers) that Google only endorsed to make themselves look better after fucking up their dozen messaging platforms in a dozen years (not sure if a dozen is too many or too few, I lost track a while ago). I still don't get why a technical crowd wants RCS given it's carrier locked like MMS/SMS and has poor E2EE without any guarantees of E2EE (if your carrier doesn't support it, you don't get it).

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