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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she’s not a fan of “green texts on iPhones” and that it’s “time to break up Apple’s smartphone monopoly,” but statistics show the tech giant doesn’t have exclusive control over the market.
The Department of Justice announced a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple in March, accusing the California-based company of engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones that boxes out competitors, stifles innovation and keeps prices artificially high.
Warren took to social media this week, displaying her support for the suit that takes aim at how Apple allegedly molds its technology and business relationships to “extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others.”
Warren specifically called out how people who don’t have iPhones are blocked from sending blue iMessages as messages from Androids and other devices are green. Those without iPhones also face other restrictions, the Massachusetts senator added.
“Green texts on iPhones, they’re ruining relationships. That’s right,” Warren said in a video posted on X Thursday. “Non-iPhone users everywhere are being excluded from group texts. From sports teams chats to birthday chats to vacation plan chats, they’re getting cut out.”
“And who’s to blame here? Apple,” she continued . “That’s just one of the dirty tactics that Apple uses to keep a stranglehold on the smartphone market. … It’s time to break up Apple’s monopoly now.”
Critics quickly called Warren out for spreading misinformation and for focusing on what they believe is a non-issue.
“It would be nice if Android users could use iMessage features,” an X user responded, “but why would anyone think this sort of micromanaging of businesses is the legitimate role of the government?”
An alert attached to Warren’s post shows context that readers added and “thought people might want to know.” It includes data from Statista highlighting how the iPhone had a 57% market share compared to Android’s 42% in North America, as of January.
The alert, which was removed as of Friday evening, also contained information from Investopedia around how a “monopoly is exclusive control, or no close substitutes. The current market share of iPhone v Android does not meet that definition.”
Attorneys general from 16 states filed the lawsuit with the Department of Justice in federal court in New Jersey. Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell did not sign onto the suit which seeks to stop Apple from undermining technologies that compete with its own apps — in areas including streaming, messaging and digital payments.
The suit is the latest example of aggressive antitrust enforcement by an administration that has also taken on Google, Amazon and other tech giants with the stated aim of making the digital universe more fair, innovative and competitive.
“If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement last month. “The Justice Department will vigorously enforce antitrust laws that protect consumers from higher prices and fewer choices.”
Apple has called the suit “wrong on the facts and the law” and said it “will vigorously defend against it.”
If successful, the lawsuit would “hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect” and would “set a dangerous precedent, empowering the government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology,” the company said in a statement last month.
Actually that’s the case where she, being incompetent, found the right point to press.
She literally attacks the use of network effect to preserve oligopoly. Not knowing that.
And yeah, there is deniability for Apple in the sense that “this isn’t intentional, normies are just creating these ape social dynamics all by themselves”, but their ads etc have pretty consistent emotional messages. Yes, they do endorse it.
And they couldn’t refrain from their usual bullshit even in the answer to this.
S L A M M E D
Absolutely fucking STOMPED ON
ELIZABETH WARREN OUT HERE GETTING CRUSHED LIKE TURTS
COME ON AND SLAM
I didn’t know Apple was a monopoly…
They are absolute dicks with iMessage, but they are not a monopoly.
I am an iPhone user, and I don’t get why people look down on the green bubbles, I have several friends with Android phones, we can all send images and texts to eachother, sure the photos are reduced in size, but it’s fine.
Just implement the new message standard, Apple and stop being dicks
They haven’t implemented RCS because it’s a dumpster with no redeeming qualities.
“RCS” only works on Android because Google did a bunch of their own shit outside the spec to make it remotely functional. They’re trying to use legislature to bully their way into controlling the standard by forcing Apple to use it.
Yup, and pretending otherwise is just head burying
Google Messages is to RCS what WhatsApp is to XMPP.
And Apple is going to be no different as they deal with Google and plug into their system.
I’m so surprised by the way this has gone in the US. The weird ass blend of SMS and messaging iMessage uses for no reason and the fact that it’s sorta-kinda platform exclusive but not really is just an absolute mess of dumb engineering.
The fact that RCS is even part of this conversation seems so weird. Surely the real answer is for iMessage to just… have an Android port that works like the iOS port, right? That’s how every other messaging app does it. I mean, sure, over here in Androidland where everybody uses Whatsapp (which has its own issues), RCS is a thing. If you open your text messaging app for some reason there is a Google prompt to switch it to RCS as a one-time optional choice. I just… never bothered. Because who the hell uses either SMS or RCS anyway?
Would I switch to iMessage if there was an Android port? No. Because everybody I’ve ever known with an iPhone uses Whatsapp, so that’d be as useful as switching to carrier pigeons. But it’s worth pointing out that the only reason the EU hasn’t forced interoperability for iMessage is exactly that. If it hadn’t already lost the messenger app wars in Europe they would have been forced to sort this out one way or another.
You kinda walked that back by yourself, I think. The point of anticompetitive practices isn’t having a 100% market share, it’s having a position of strength to enforce your control of the market.
So… you know, being dicks.
Enforcing a single form of in-platform commerce where you get a share and banning all other ways to sell or install software, downgrading the quality of media generated by your competitors, bundling your own unrelated software and adding roadblocks to competing alternatives… all of that is part of what’s being discussed here.
The point is that there is a resonable alternative in Android, no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone, nor is the market lacking in available alternatives.
Yes, Apple are dicks, but they don’t have a monopoly.
See, that’s the problem with modern politics. Warren knows very well that “a monopoly” understood as “the single remaining actor in a market” is imprecise and not the bar needed for antitrust laws to kick in. But she also knows that “an anticompetitive position of strength in the market” will not make the same headlines and confuse people.
So she says “a monopoly”.
So you say “not a monopoly”.
So this is a sterile conversation.
Antitrust laws are in place to prevent the specific behaviors Apple has been engaging in for ages. From the muscling out of third party repair shops to the attempt to bundle together every piece of software and hardware they make in-house, Apple is blatantly violating competition rules all over the place. The only reason they haven’t been more aggressively regulated already elsewhere is their monopolistic price-hiking doesn’t play in territories that are more sensitive to pricing for tech. Maybe on purpose? Hard to tell. If Apple had the type of market share across the EU it has in the US one can only imagine what sort of fines or threats to split it up it would have received by this point.
If you use slammed in your headline I already know it’s going to be the most garbage bullshit I’ve ever read. I went delve into it.
Here’s a link to anyone who wants to know why apple is considered a monopoly Is Apple an illegal monopoly?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
o shit she was slammed???
slammmmmed
Every time I read SLAMMED in an headline, my brain damage grows exponentially worse. I can’t keep taking these kind of blows…
Some say the slam was so hard the shockwaves were felt on the other side of the globe.
The slammer was thrown down so hard the pogs just went fucking everywhere.
What monopoly?
Users have choice. If they want an open system, choose android. If they want a closed system, choose Apple.
What’s the fuckin problem. Let’s deal with real issues, not this bullshit.
I own a Samsung… So.
gonna SLAM this writer
If I read someone getting slammed in a headline I instantly lose all interest
Slammed and thrown off a cage through the announcer table…🙄
Well the article title sucks, but also it’s not a monopoly so idk what she’s bitching about.
The originality in these comments. Thought I was at bot city.
