Apple needs to be broken up

[russell_314]

Seriously, though, I would love to see more competition in the phone market. At least in the USA it is coming down to Samsung and Apple for the hardware and worldwide Google and Apple for the operating system. A monopoly is bad, but this is a close second.

Just to clarify, I’m not for breaking up Apple because that’s just silly but rather a third or fourth competitor to come in and compete with Google and Apple.

I think the lack of competition has made Apple a bit cocky when it comes to some of their moves that go against consumer privacy. It’s almost like they’re saying you can go with Google that is going to farm all of your data or there’s us. We may not be 100% private with your data but we’re better than Google.

 

[theluggage]

Just to clarify, I’m not for breaking up Apple because that’s just silly but rather a third or fourth competitor to come in and compete with Google and Apple.

Well, looking at my phone provider in the UK there are about 8 brands, but the only ones that make it onto the front page (i.e. the popular ones) are Apple, Samsung and Honor (AFAIK that's actually Huawei - topic for another thread). All iOS or Android, of course.

That's the trouble - sellers will promote what sells and/or whichever manufacturer offers them the best incentives. There are a bunch of alternatives if you buy sim-free from Amazon or other specialist online retailers, but people who just go to their provider's store won't see them. It is quite possible to make an Android phone with just the open-source parts, but the EU is currently hammering Google over not allowing makers to use the Google Play app store unless they also include Chrome and Google Search. There are also several Ubuntu-based phones on the market - but without Google Play Store they've got an uphill struggle against customer "app anxiety" and they're very unlikely to show up on the front page of your service provider.

I think the lack of competition has made Apple a bit cocky when it comes to some of their moves that go against consumer privacy.

Same "tragedy of the commons" problem - most customers don't give a wet slap about privacy, they're going to splash the details of their private lives all over TwitTokaGramBook anyway and actually like the features that come from the phone tracking them. Only a tiny niche of buyers will sacrifice neat features for the sake of privacy - for everybody else Apple has to compete with Google - and their "you're not the customer - you're the product" business model to stay relevant.

That's why government intervention is sometimes necessary - to level the playing field so companies don't get a financial hit for "doing the right thing"... but that opens up a whole other can of (political) worms.

 

[usmaak]

Apple has a de facto monopoly on hardware allowed to run macOS. This is not in the best interest of consumers because it removed competition from this space.

This is in the best interest of Apple consumers. If you let anyone create hardware to run iOS, then you quickly end up with a ton of low and mid quality devices that run iOS, but not particularly well. Apple devices work well because the software is designed and written specifically for the hardware. Going the other direction would make this just another android.

 

[XboxEvolved]

So you want to destroy the thing that makes Apple unique to the rest of the industry, while the rest try to replicate their model to varying degrees? Also, Apple did break up into subsidiaries for Newton and owns several now. They also went the route of licensing out the OS in the past and in the past cared less about the hardware and all of these things nearly killed Apple.