As someone who's been developing iOS apps since the beginning, I hope that the gov't has some success in pushing Apple to open up the platform to alternative app stores, as the EU is forcing them to do with the Digital Markets Act (and Apple's providing the best examples of passive-aggressive malicious compliance that I've ever seen).
The fundamental issue at play for us developers is that Apple is selling iPhones for full price to consumers and then telling those customers what they can and cannot have on the devices that those customers own. I currently have a research study on indefinite hiatus because Apple decided that what were doing with a fully informed and consented research population (overseen by a university institutional review board) wasn't something that they would allow, and they denied access to the API (Family Controls) that their own internal devs are free to use as they like.
You mention in your piece that this is the "Apple Way". That's not entirely true. iOS was the first platform where Apple was able to actually exercise this level of control (empowered by cryptographic code signing and Apple controlling all the keys). The Mac prior to iOS was a remarkably open platform with a thriving community of commercial and "indie" software developers innovating and serving happy customers. (Many of these innovations were later usurped by Apple and incorporated into their own products - search for "apple sherlocking".) In the decade since the introduction of iOS, we've seen Apple increasingly try to exert the same control it has on iOS on the Mac platform using the same code-signing technologies.
Like you, I'm skeptical that the US gov't will do much to Apple here. Using the Microsoft case as an example, the court case will last YEARS, and it's more likely that some third party development (a move away from apps to browser-based interactions, generative AI becoming the default user interface for computing devices, VR, etc.) will do more to depower Apple than the DOJ.
Still, as a developer who has wasted significant amounts of time dealing with Apple's nonsense over the past decade and a half, the greatest good that this case could achieve is breaking Apple's monopoly on application distribution and allow other app stores on the device. This would give customers an actual choice for where they purchase their software, and it would put pressure on Apple to actually quit collecting rents on their App Store, and actually make it a compelling place to FIND (good app discoverability on the App Store has been broken for over a decade) and purchase software from the third-party developers working hard to produce it.
Take a look at what Steam and other alternative software markets have done for the PC. There's no reason - other than Apple's greed - that innovation and competition cannot exist on iOS devices, AND Android devices, as Google's been more closely emulating Apple's behavior in the past couple of years with the Google Play market. Epic sued them and found more success in their suit against Google.
Handheld computing is too valuable of a form factor to let a couple large entities dictate and monopolize which applications will be allowed on them.
I remember "Too Big to Fail" and I think what you are talking about goes along that, and what has happened. I think when companies get so big perhaps new laws should be applied. Spin-offs used to be a thing now conglomerates are the thing and causes monopolistic practices. Transparency is the only thing to keep "what is happening" from happening. I could understand, and I hope for, laws where a set market share, or a company net worth, would kick in to stop this from happening. Predatory practices are the villain and laws could be written to make these practices apparent.
Apple certainly has been successful at locking in its customers - especially youngsters and females of all ages. Even some tech experts were sold on Apple. I kept my granddaughter supplied with computers and peripherals through seven years of senior high school and undergraduate and graduate college. Every couple of years, she and I would go to the Apple store at the Mall of Georgia where she would pick out a new computer. The computers had to be Apple because of a few features that evidently turned $500 computers into $1500 investments. Apple actually provided help to non-savvy users, but it was reflected in the price. I bought her an Apple phone once and she promptly traded it in on a different model for reasons I still don't understand - might have been the color. I'm not compatible with Apple and all cell phones are trial and error for me.
You make great points. Sometimes I don't get things exactly right but the gist of what I said is right. It is all about how politicians can launder money to themselves while allowing the companies to continue as they wish. As long as the money is flowing the cycle never ends. Government has lost all credibility with me. There are smart guys, like you, who could get ideas planted which would end up changing everything. In all things; it is not what you know, but who!
Great summary on the case and the history!
As someone who's been developing iOS apps since the beginning, I hope that the gov't has some success in pushing Apple to open up the platform to alternative app stores, as the EU is forcing them to do with the Digital Markets Act (and Apple's providing the best examples of passive-aggressive malicious compliance that I've ever seen).
The fundamental issue at play for us developers is that Apple is selling iPhones for full price to consumers and then telling those customers what they can and cannot have on the devices that those customers own. I currently have a research study on indefinite hiatus because Apple decided that what were doing with a fully informed and consented research population (overseen by a university institutional review board) wasn't something that they would allow, and they denied access to the API (Family Controls) that their own internal devs are free to use as they like.
You mention in your piece that this is the "Apple Way". That's not entirely true. iOS was the first platform where Apple was able to actually exercise this level of control (empowered by cryptographic code signing and Apple controlling all the keys). The Mac prior to iOS was a remarkably open platform with a thriving community of commercial and "indie" software developers innovating and serving happy customers. (Many of these innovations were later usurped by Apple and incorporated into their own products - search for "apple sherlocking".) In the decade since the introduction of iOS, we've seen Apple increasingly try to exert the same control it has on iOS on the Mac platform using the same code-signing technologies.
Like you, I'm skeptical that the US gov't will do much to Apple here. Using the Microsoft case as an example, the court case will last YEARS, and it's more likely that some third party development (a move away from apps to browser-based interactions, generative AI becoming the default user interface for computing devices, VR, etc.) will do more to depower Apple than the DOJ.
Still, as a developer who has wasted significant amounts of time dealing with Apple's nonsense over the past decade and a half, the greatest good that this case could achieve is breaking Apple's monopoly on application distribution and allow other app stores on the device. This would give customers an actual choice for where they purchase their software, and it would put pressure on Apple to actually quit collecting rents on their App Store, and actually make it a compelling place to FIND (good app discoverability on the App Store has been broken for over a decade) and purchase software from the third-party developers working hard to produce it.
Take a look at what Steam and other alternative software markets have done for the PC. There's no reason - other than Apple's greed - that innovation and competition cannot exist on iOS devices, AND Android devices, as Google's been more closely emulating Apple's behavior in the past couple of years with the Google Play market. Epic sued them and found more success in their suit against Google.
Handheld computing is too valuable of a form factor to let a couple large entities dictate and monopolize which applications will be allowed on them.
I remember "Too Big to Fail" and I think what you are talking about goes along that, and what has happened. I think when companies get so big perhaps new laws should be applied. Spin-offs used to be a thing now conglomerates are the thing and causes monopolistic practices. Transparency is the only thing to keep "what is happening" from happening. I could understand, and I hope for, laws where a set market share, or a company net worth, would kick in to stop this from happening. Predatory practices are the villain and laws could be written to make these practices apparent.
Apple certainly has been successful at locking in its customers - especially youngsters and females of all ages. Even some tech experts were sold on Apple. I kept my granddaughter supplied with computers and peripherals through seven years of senior high school and undergraduate and graduate college. Every couple of years, she and I would go to the Apple store at the Mall of Georgia where she would pick out a new computer. The computers had to be Apple because of a few features that evidently turned $500 computers into $1500 investments. Apple actually provided help to non-savvy users, but it was reflected in the price. I bought her an Apple phone once and she promptly traded it in on a different model for reasons I still don't understand - might have been the color. I'm not compatible with Apple and all cell phones are trial and error for me.
You make great points. Sometimes I don't get things exactly right but the gist of what I said is right. It is all about how politicians can launder money to themselves while allowing the companies to continue as they wish. As long as the money is flowing the cycle never ends. Government has lost all credibility with me. There are smart guys, like you, who could get ideas planted which would end up changing everything. In all things; it is not what you know, but who!