People in the US are one of the few places where they still text from their phone number instead of using a safe texting app like WhatsApp. Early on, companies offered free SMS texting with their plans, which is one reason for this. However, most of us who watch the mobile industry blame the popularity of iMessage in the United States for the main reason. With a new antitrust case brought today by the US Justice Department, Apple’s walled garden and other parts of it are being questioned. For example, Apple doesn’t fully back gadgets that aren’t the Apple Watch.
According to The New York Times, the case that was filed on Thursday says that Apple broke trade rules by using tricks to keep people from moving from iPhones and Apple services to other brands. One of these is that Apple supposedly “undermines” iPhone users’ ability to message Android users by preventing iMessage sharing and causing the “green bubble” split. The suit says that Apple did this to make Android phones and other iPhone options seem less valuable.
The Justice Department also says Apple tried to monopolize the smartwatch market by making it so that only the Apple Watch could work with the iPhone. If you have an iPhone and a Wear OS watch, you can mirror messages and connect via Bluetooth. However, watch apps that need an app for your phone to work properly will not fully work when the wearable is paired with iOS.
There are some similarities between this case and the EU’s new DMA rule
Another claim in this lawsuit is similar to some parts of the new Digital Markets Act in the European Union. This law required Apple to make some big changes to how iOS works in that area. Even though Android had to follow the same rules, Google didn’t have to make as many changes to its operating system after the DMA passed because it already had features like browser choice and sideloading apps built in. Although sideloading doesn’t seem to be part of the US case, it does say that Apple‘s rules on mobile payments are unfair because the company won’t let other payment apps use the iPhone’s safe NFC chip in the US.
The Justice Department also says that Apple’s refusal to let users play games on the iPhone is an example of unfair behavior. The lawsuit says that Apple won’t let these kinds of games run on its platform because doing so would give computer power to the hosts of the streaming game, which would mean that people wouldn’t have to buy new iPhones with faster processors all the time when games get too hard for their old ones.
