by leptons | 2026-01-02 17:14:33+00:00
>It’s not alleged in the complaint that Apple cripples Safari in order to incentivize developers to build apps instead. Respectfully, did you read it?

DID YOU READ IT? Below are some of the relevant sections.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline

Rather than respond to competitive threats by offering lower smartphone prices to
consumers or better monetization for developers, Apple would meet competitive threats by
imposing a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions in its App Store guidelines and developer
agreements that would allow Apple to extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure
or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives. It has deployed this playbook
across many technologies, products, and services, including super apps, text messaging,
smartwatches, and digital wallets, among many others.

9. Apple suppresses such innovation through a web of contractual restrictions that it
selectively enforces through its control of app distribution and its “app review” process, as well
as by denying access to key points of connection between apps and the iPhone’s operating
system (called Application Programming Interfaces or “APIs”). Apple can enforce these
restrictions due to its position as an intermediary between product creators such as developers on
the one hand and users on the other.

16. Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to
justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to
promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers’ privacy and security
interests. Apple selectively compromises privacy and security interests when doing so is in
Apple’s own financial interest—such as degrading the security of text messages, offering
governments and certain companies the chance to access more private and secure versions of app
stores, or accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine
when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security
justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and
business interests.

43. Developers cannot avoid Apple’s control of app distribution and app creation by
making web apps—apps created using standard programming languages for web-based content
and available over the internet—as an alternative to native apps. Many iPhone users do not look
for or know how to find web apps, causing web apps to constitute only a small fraction of app
usage. Apple recognizes that web apps are not a good alternative to native apps for developers.
As one Apple executive acknowledged, “[d]evelopers can’t make much money on the web.”
Regardless, Apple can still control the functionality of web apps because Apple requires all web
browsers on the iPhone to use WebKit, Apple’s browser engine—the key software components
that third-party browsers use to display web content.

60. For years, Apple denied its users access to super apps because it viewed them as
“fundamentally disruptive” to “existing app distribution and development paradigms” and
ultimately Apple’s monopoly power. Apple feared super apps because it recognized that as they
become popular, “demand for iPhone is reduced.” So, Apple used its control over app
distribution and app creation to effectively prohibit developers from offering super apps instead
of competing on the merits.