- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ and states are accusing Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its iPhones.
I don’t hate Apple but I do hate their influence. They release some wireless earbuds and then suddenly all the manufacturers “don’t have enough room for a headphone jack”, …get the fuck out of here.
i’m still angry about their initiatives on delicate phone bodies and non-removable batteries.
And “no physical keyboards”
Ehh, that’s ok. Slide out keyboards aside, having an on-display keyboard is a better idea by and large.
A keyboard without tactile feedback is objectively worse than a keyboard with tactile feedback, excluding other factors.
I’ve never had a physical keyboard lag out then send an entirely different keystroke because it thought I held a button, or send a single keystroke because I was typing too quickly.
I’ve never had to wait a moment for a physical keyboard to show up after selecting a text box.
I’ve never had the entire layout of a page shift to make room for a physical keyboard whenever I select or deselect a text box.
I’ve never had a physical keyboard prevent me from using the number pad and force me to use the full keyboard (or worse, vice versa) because of an improperly configured input box.
The way I see it there are exactly two real benefits to integrating a software keyboard into a touchscreen: reduced physical complexity (the entire device is essentially just one screen), and easier access to emoji. A touchscreen keyboard performs far worse as a keyboard. It’s a valid trade-off for a small mobile device, but it’s not objectively better.
Not all phones have gone to the dark side - https://www.fxtec.com
Their propaganda you mean.
That’s not Apple, that’s the free market. Samsung touted wired headphones and a headphone jack and the market still showed they wanted wireless.
Or maybe people just need phones and there are only like 3 actual options.
That’s simply not true. Have you been in a mobile phone store recently? There’s far more than 3 brands of phone let alone 3 models per brand.
No it’s definitely Apple.
But that’s not illegal. Apple can’t force competitors to be influenced by them. If Samsung, Google and the like choose to be sheep, that’s on them. I don’t use Apple products. They’re not impacting my life.
If you own a phone, Apple impacts your life. Don’t be naive.
That’s silly. I own a Samsung phone. Checking email and the weather on it hardly “impacts” my life. Furthermore, you have the option to move to another platform if it bothers you that much. If people don’t leave, that indicates their users are willing to tolerate these issues.
Apple impacts your life, if indirectly, by shaping the market that they control over 50% of. I haven’t owned an Apple product since my 4th gen click wheel iPod, and I’d be a fool to suggest that their decisions don’t have an influence on my life.
Influence and impact are not interchangeable. I would agree they have some influence (indirect) as they affect their competitors and I purchase products from their competitors. They don’t impact (direct) me as I do not use any of their services or products. Apple and I do not have a direct relationship.
Lol ok semantics.
“Impact” doesn’t mean “direct” necessarily, that’s why the word is often used with the word “direct” or “indirect” as a modifier.
It’s probably safe to assume that’s not the basis for the monopoly claim
I should hope not. They have about 61% market share in the US. A large chunk to be sure, but hardly a monopoly. With plenty of Android OS manufacturers, there are plenty to choose from.
According to the article, the main points are:
I’m somewhat conflicted. As much as I despise Apple, they have complete rights on their operating systems and thus can tell what they want or don’t want there, kinda like how videogame consoles work. Far from ideal for both consumers and developers, obviously, especially with how Apple hates both.
As a court case, this sounds dumb and likely to go nowhere. If it was a law proposal that would force them and any future wannabes to open up like PCs, however, I’d be fully behind it.
I seldom argue against capitalism, but this is a good example of runaway capitalism. Apple has been causing a lot of problems and grief. If this isn’t the solution, what is? People are too stupid en mass to make the change we need here.
But how is that Apple’s fault? Weird argument.
OC isn’t claiming that the shift in the industry is solely Apple’s fault:
The reality is that what OC said is exactly what happened. Apple removed the headphone jack to coerce people into buying AirPods. Everyone else released their own wireless earbuds to compete, and also removes their headphone jacks for the same reason.
Deliberately degrading picture quality when the metadata says it’s from a competitor to push the narrative that they have the best cameras is also pretty low. Points for the sheer audacity, though.
Wait is there actually proof of this? That’s pretty damning.
The proof is the status quo. Video texts from Android users look bad on an iPhone. Apple could choose to fall back to RCS instead of SMS from iMessage. RCS would offer better video quality than SMS, which overall improves the interoperability of all phones. Because RCS is a standard and the natural successor to SMS, refusing to support the standard makes it less likely to succeed, with the intent of defending their dominant market share.
Actually it coincided with IPX rating for smartphones. The last headphone jack smartphones did not have water resistance, but the newer models did. People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.
These days you can get both, but my phone has a 3.5mm jack and NO ipx rating that I could find
LOL imagine if capitalism actually worked this way…
Edit: People seem to be missing the point. I am aware that phones with 3.5mm jacks exist. I also just understand that capitalism and “free markets” don’t actually work the way people seem to think they do. Maybe if the headphone jack was the most important feature to people, it would do better. Or maybe if it was an mp3 player and not a phone. Or maybe, simply, if it was manufactured by a brand people have heard of. Sometimes it’s literally that simple.
But that isn’t the case, is it?
There are still phones with 3.5mm jacks and they are not the best selling models
Maybe people aren’t spending $500-$1200 on a device just because it has a headphone jack. Like that’s anyone’s top concern.
Zen phone 10 has everything you need and a 3.5mm jack
Why isn’t it outselling the rest of them?
Are you asking me to explain microeconomics to you? Ask 100 people in the US if they’ve ever heard of Zen Phone, and 99 will tell you no.
And, again, that’s nobody’s top concern. Maybe if it was an mp3 player, rather than a phone, whether or not it has a headphone jack would be higher up on the priority list.
If it was that important, people would have heard about it
Exactly my point
My rugged phone is IP68 but it has Usb C connector and SIM/SD tray, so adding a headphone jack while having an IPX rating seems not impossible.
It’s not impossible, they just didn’t do it back then so we ended up in the situation we are in now. By the way, the DAC in my phone is low quality, so I hear popping and distortion when I play
http://plasticity.szynalski.com/
at the same time, my phone doesn’t do output to a DAC through USB because it already has a 3.5mm port, so I can’t use something higher quality
I don’t think DAC is reason behind popping and distortion. Probably shit power circuit or amplifier.
It’s both, because I hear little bells in the background even at low volume. An IEM is very sensitive so needs very little power, the amplifier will perform worse as it needs to output more power.
In fact when I use over ears, it sounds better because I increase the device volume which increases the input voltage
Anyway, the $9 Apple dongle blows my phone’s 3.5mm jack out of the water. My tablet and desktop have the same issue, but when I connect the same devices to my ancient laptop they sound perfect.
The point is the 3.5mm jack actually gets me worse sound quality because my phone doesn’t output audio to usb, so I only use it with my TWS. Which, by the way, also sound like crap in the same game, but it might just be Bluetooth issues