- U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit Accuses Apple of monopolizing
smartphone markets and anticompetitive behavior.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets
- EU Commission DMA breach The European Commission found Apple in breach of
the Digital Markets Act regarding steering rules.
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-finds-apple-and-meta-breach-digital-markets-act
- Epic Games injunction sanctions Court rules Apple defied App Store order
regarding external payment links.
https://apnews.com/article/69b16572d2b2c990f6b69d4bbad9b57b
- EU €1.8B App Store fine Fined for abusive music-streaming rules and
preventing cheaper alternative information.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161
IPHONE PERFORMANCE AND "BATTERYGATE"
- Apple Will Finally Pay for Throttling iPhones (WIRED) Apple settled the
throttling lawsuit for up to $500 million (without admitting guilt).
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-batterygate-settlement-payments-finally-coming/
RIGHT TO REPAIR AND PARTS PAIRING
- The End of Parts Pairing? Almost (iFixit) On how software component linking
forces warnings and loses functionality.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/100266/the-end-of-parts-pairing-almost
- Self-Repair Programme Critique (Right to Repair Europe) Critiques
serialization, remote authorization, and part restrictions.
https://repair.eu/news/apples-self-repair-programme-is-not-the-right-to-repair-we-need/
- France is Fighting to Save Your iPhone from an Early Death (WIRED) Regarding
France's probe into planned obsolescence and parts pairing.
https://www.wired.com/story/right-to-repair-apple-france/
PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE
- Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit (Reuters) Lawsuit
alleging accidental Siri recordings and sharing with third parties.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-siri-privacy-lawsuit-2025-01-02/
- Apple's CSAM On-Device Scanning Critiques (EFF) The Electronic Frontier
Foundation's critique of Apple's plan to scan photos on-device (later
dropped).
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-different-about-encryption-opens-backdoor-your-private-life
LABOR CONDITIONS IN SUPPLY CHAINS
- Apple Reveals Supply Chain, Details Conditions (Reuters) Early reporting on
audit findings of child labor and work violations.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uk/apple-reveals-supply-chain-details-conditions-idUSTRE80C1KV/
- Rights Group Says Apple Suppliers in China Broke Labor Laws (Reuters)
Reports of excessive overtime and labor violations in Chinese factories.
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/rights-group-says-apple-suppliers-in-china-breaking-labour-laws-idUSBRE85R0EF/
TAX PRACTICES
- State aid: Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth up to €13
billion (European Commission) The EC ruling that Ireland gave illegal tax
benefits to Apple, later upheld.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_16_2923
I’ll defend batterygate. If you know anything about batteries (especially the tendencies of those in that era), the actions taken by Apple were reasonable, though they should have considered the light in which throttling would be taken. The claim against them was valid but I don’t think the actions were ever malicious.
> Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties (yahoo.com)
Apple routinely terminates relationships with suppliers when they identify abusive practices, sometimes they’re slow about it.
> Apple's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments (jessesquires.com)
> Apple removes nearly 100 VPNs used by Russians to bypass censorship (elpais.com)
Apple obeys local laws
> Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA (open-web-advocacy.org)
Apple chooses to maintain control over a specific implementation detail of their platform that a handful of nerds object to.
> Apple defined ICE as a "protected class" in blocking anti-ICE apps (boingboing.net)
The claim made in this headline is just straight up false.
I don’t know, I don’t think their less-than-ideal behaviour is anywhere bad enough to reasonably be described as “evil”. Otherwise, we’re probably all evil.
A list of very normal capitalistic practices. Borderline, sometimes ruthless, sometimes opportunistic. Evil is enabling genocide in Myanmar, which Meta provenly did.
Evil is voluntarily steal millions of artworks for your own benefit, which OpenAI has provenly done.
Etc…
What about the kids they intentionally get driven to suicide by keeping the blue bubbles for no other reason than child indoctrination due to bullying from other kids.
My first reaction was that it was ridiculous, or at least hysterically framed. But the claim is that the whole point of the bubble colour thing, from Apple's perspective, is to take advantage of status games among (largely) kids. If that's true, then it's probably fair to hold Apple partially responsible for the predictable negative consequences. I'd be surprised if something so silly was actually decisive in the worst cases, but I guess if this is playing out among millions of kids, it may be having outsized effects occasionally.
APP STORE, COMPETITION, AND MARKET CONTROL
IPHONE PERFORMANCE AND "BATTERYGATE" RIGHT TO REPAIR AND PARTS PAIRING PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE LABOR CONDITIONS IN SUPPLY CHAINS TAX PRACTICES