Apple was ordered on Wednesday to face a private antitrust lawsuit by payment card issuers accusing the company of thwarting competition for its Apple Pay mobile wallet.
I’m not really sure that’s a fair argument. Android generally pushes Google Play, and Samsung devices push Samsung pay. Sure, Android has more choices, but it’s still device manufacturers pushing their own products.
Of course Apple should allow competition within their ecosystem, but Samsung and Google are basically doing the exact same thing.
I mostly agree, but then I think about how I have a Samsung phone but can still use Google Wallet instead of Samsung Pay because it's an open ecosystem. They both push their own products, but the end user is ultimately able to use whatever product they want. This is clearly not the case for Apple, which is what I'm guessing the case is about.
It has to be this. As a non apple device user, I can use ANY pay system EXCEPT Apple pay. You must own an apple device to use it. There might be some roundabout way on PC with iTunes, but even if there is, it's unaccessible on a phone.
Android may push Google pay, but you can still use other options. Samsung pay, some banks have their own contactless payment apps. You have a choice, even if you are nudged in one direction.
On iOS there is no choice. You use apple pay or you use nothing.
My argument is that we should be going after more than just Apple. Apple is clearly the most at fault here, but that shouldn’t excuse companies like Google and Samsung.
Sept 27 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) was ordered on Wednesday to face a private antitrust lawsuit by payment card issuers accusing the company of thwarting competition for its Apple Pay mobile wallet.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said the plaintiffs could try to prove that Apple violated the federal Sherman antitrust law by enforcing a 100% monopoly over the domestic market for tap-and-pay wallets for iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"There are billions at stake so getting by the motion (to dismiss) largely intact was huge for the class."
They said Apple "coerces" people who use its smartphones, tablets and smart watches into using its own wallet for tap-and-pay transactions, unlike makers of Android-based devices that let people choose wallets such as Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
European Union antitrust regulators accused Apple in May 2022 of abusing its dominance in iOS devices and mobile wallets.
The original article contains 355 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
~I thought there were third-party payment systems on the iPhone already (including ones using NFC)?
And even the convenience advantage Apple Pay enjoys should be gone on the 15 Pro at least as you can map your third-party payment app to the action button.~
As blatantly anti-competitive as it may be, I don’t want to be in a position where, if I want to pay for something with my phone, I’m forced to use whatever shitty application my bank decides to implement (I’ve had banking applications just decide to stop working for a few days, for no apparent reason; there are banks that have countless applications, each doing something slightly different, with complex, oftentimes downright hostile authentication methods, involving combinations of these apps)
I like the fact that, regardless of card I use, they’re all exposed through the same simple Wallet application, that always works.
One of the uses of Apple Wallet is to auto-fill web payment forms. You use any credit card you want for a great user experience, and Apple is not charging anyone
It should be noted that antitrust laws are broad, and don’t have any arbitrary market share requirement to trigger. Players can distort markets in many ways, directly and indirectly.
There are choices. You don’t like Apple Pay, get an Android phone.
Apple is manufacturing the phones and creating the ecosystem associated to the phone.
Because they manufacture the whole thing, they may get away with it as a hardware feature, which they protect for security and privacy reasons, which is their sales pitch to their customers.
Apple doesn’t sell its OS to other manufacturers.
Google does. And because they do that, they have to let other manufacturers have access to the OS features that manage payments through .
Android phones have been dinged with vulnerabilities through NFC technology.
Microsoft has been dinged with anti-Trust losses because they forced their features on other devices and quenched other manufacturers to do what they wanted. Apple doesn’t deal with other manufacturers. Apple doesn’t force customers to only do Apple Pay for transactions. Sure, it’s a feature they offer, but you can use Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, etc. with your phone. Even Google Pay. Just not with the phone’s hardware. They don’t even force you to use their card to pay.
In fact, Google and Samsung could use the payment system from Apple, if they create a bank and a card. But no, they can’t design software that could create vulnerabilities to Apple devices...and if that’s Apple’s competitive advantage, why should they give it away?