Can I get an antitrust probe for every other app that doesn't allow third party clients, too?
Hell, I remember getting banned back in the day from Snap for using the Windows Phone app.
Hell, I remember getting banned back in the day from Snap for using the Windows Phone app.
Without a drastic overhaul across the entire industry around the definition of service providers "interface" and requirements around documentation, it'll just open an exciting new can of worms and pain for customers. Support will be hell, experiences that work seamless will be difficult to achieve.
Again - that's not to say it's a bad idea, it just seems like we'd need a real rethinking of how we're doing things as an industry. That could be good, or we end up with a tragedy of the commons.
I think the argument is the bundling of iMessage in with SMS. Yes, there's lots of third-party chat services too, and yes, no other tech company is clamoring to allow unauthorized third party access either.
But iMessage gets to intercept and pretend to be SMS (or more accurately, iMessage exists to block the RCS your phone line always already had) and it's pre-installed, uninstallable, and with special access exclusive to apple, which is where I think the argument could land.
A case could be argued of iMessage + iPhone is really similar to the late 90s era Microsoft Windows + Internet Explorer, in that they both break Sherman Antitrust Act: Section 2, in very similar ways, for very similar reasons.
(to be clear, I don't think they'd win, but I could see a strong argument there)
Basically no user would do this but it's not somehow magically forced on the user.
Is the Camera app an antitrust issue too? Any bundled application?