GoKawiilis a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
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How it started
The year was 1998, and reigning personal computer giant Microsoft was on trial for violating antitrust laws, including by targeting its smaller competitor Apple. Apple occupied only a fraction of the PC market, while Microsoft held north of 80 percent. But its cross-platform QuickTime multimedia player threatened Microsoft’s own offerings, and a court determined that Microsoft had tried to crush it — pushing Apple to abandon a QuickTime version for Windows and implying it would limit the tool’s distribution options if Apple didn’t back off.
Anyone who’s used an electronic device lately probably knows Apple’s position has shifted. It may have never unseated Microsoft in the personal computer market, but it reigns in the far bigger category of mobile computing. It makes money at virtually every layer of its ubiquitous iPhone: the phone’s hardware, numerous accessories like earbuds and location trackers, first-party software services like Apple Music, and commissions from the developers whose apps populate the App Store. Even the iOS search bar is a moneymaker, thanks to a revenue-sharing deal that sets Google Search as the default.
All that power, combined with Apple’s tight control over its mobile ecosystem, has raised a lot of hackles. Some hardware and software developers say Apple copied and integrated tools they built (a practice known as Sherlocking), then disadvantaged them by locking them out of certain iOS features that its own tool could access — the former typically isn’t illegal, but the latter can be. Many app makers are critical of the App Store commission, pejoratively known as the “Apple Tax.” Developers and users alike are sometimes frustrated with Apple’s lack of support for third-party app stores or sideloading, which rival phone maker Google (albeit with its own anticompetitive restrictions) allows.
Over the past decade in particular, Apple has joined the growing number of major tech companies facing antitrust action. Chief among its critics is Fortnite maker Epic Games, which has filed legal complaints in several countries, seeking to use its own payment system and launch a third-party app store on iOS. Governments across the world — including in the US, the European Union, Brazil, Korea, and Japan — have also gotten in on the action, seeking to crack open the walls of Apple’s digital garden.
In an industry full of sprawling multipronged tech empires, the basic antitrust argument against Apple is comparatively simple: it’s become the ultimate gatekeeper to billions of people’s primary computing hardware, and it keeps competitors locked out while levying a heavy toll on the developers it lets through. The details are different, but in some ways, it hits the same emotional notes as the old case against Microsoft — they’re both stories about a company limiting what you can do with your personal device.
Navigating the legal implications of iOS’ design, though, has proven complicated. Actually changing it is proving even tougher.
How it’s going
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