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Beeper vs Apple battle intensifies: Lawmakers demand DOJ investigation - Android Authority
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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I don’t get it. iMessage is Apple’s service. Why are they obliged to open it up for everyone to use? Would it be nice? Yes, of course. Should Apple be legally required to open up access to their service?
The US Federal Trade Commission puts it this way:
It further explains that "market power" means:
Emphasis added. What the government might argue in this case is that Apple has market power in the online message space because it preloads its own messaging app on its smartphones, which I believe enjoy a majority market share in the USA. One remedy the government could seek is requiring Apple to allow third parties to develop clients for its messaging service.
They aren't excluding competitors. Anyone is free to write a cross platform messaging app that has blue bubbles in it. The preloading thing could be an issue if you can't uninstall imessage. Otherwise it would follow the IE/edge ruling.
But we'll see what the courts say.
They'd have to allow any app to replace iMessages as their sms client.
Alternatively, you could argue that their monopoly in messaging is being unfairly applied in hardware. That would have to be brought up by a hardware vendor like One Plus.