The US Department of Justice formally sued Apple in March 2024, accusing the company of having a “smartphone monopoly.”
Apple has voiced its opposition to the case many times over the last year. Now, it has officially filed its answer to the DOJ’s antitrust complaint, pushing back forcefully against the DOJ’s allegations.
As a refresher, the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit focuses on five major aspects of the iPhone experience: super apps, cloud streaming games, third-party messaging apps, third-party smartwatches, and third-party digital wallets. In today’s filing, Apple says the DOJ “fundamentally misunderstands” those five things.
Apple outlines:
DOJ says Apple stifles the success of “super apps,” despite the fact that Apple’s rules allow and support such apps, and indeed a multitude of “super apps” exist on the App Store today.
DOJ says Apple blocks cloud streaming games, even though Apple allows streaming games both over the web and in the App Store where they can stream games directly to users.
DOJ says Apple degrades third-party messaging apps, even though they are widely available and enormously popular on iPhone already.
DOJ says Apple limits the functionality of third-party smartwatches, even though they can effectively pair with iPhone, share data to and from the iPhone via a companion app, and take advantage of certain functionalities Apple has developed, which are expanding over time.
DOJ says Apple withholds access to iPhone hardware necessary for third-party digital wallets to use tap-to-pay technology; however, Apple developed and provides a mechanism that protects user security.
Apple’s full filing walks through the intricacies of each of those topics and highlights where it thinks the DOJ is misguided.
... continue reading