“Apple Inc. urged a federal judge to dismiss a consumer lawsuit alleging the company maintains a monopoly over iPhone applications,” Karen Gullo reports for Bloomberg.
“Attorneys who filed the suit in 2011 claim that a monopoly exists because an iPhone user who doesn’t want to pay what developers charge for applications available through Apple’s App Store can’t go anywhere else to buy them,” Gullo reports. “Apple requires iPhone software developers to turn over 30 percent of what they charge for an application, increasing prices and excluding competitors from the iPhone ‘aftermarket’ of applications, they claim.”
Gullo reports, “Apple doesn’t set the price for paid applications, and charging a price for distribution of a product on a new and unique platform doesn’t violate any antitrust laws, said Dan Wall, Apple’s attorney, at yesterday’s court hearing in Oakland, California. ‘There’s nothing illegal about creating a system that is closed in a sense,’ Wall told U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.”
Read more in the full article here.
Penn’s asswipe lapdog dicktater Hugo is soooooooooo D-A-I-D.
Oh look, the drunkard got here first. Try the Men’s Room ‘x’.
Plaintiff: “Your honor, I’m too cheap to pay for apps and too dumb to jailbreak my iPhone, so I’m suing Apple instead because my ambulance chaser lawyer said he’ll do all the thinking for me.”
Best BLN response ever!
See BLN! When you take your Lithium you’re gonna have a GOOD day!
‘Excluding competitors from the after-market’. I’ll bet they’d have a pretty hard time proving that one.
Ok. So, Apple hosts free apps from free. For the people having trouble with the math.
$0.00 + 30% = $0.00
Oh, that is a hardship. For who? Apple! Some people just say thank you to Apple and the programer. Idiot!
What a stupid case! How exactly does Apple have a monopoly over a software platform it owns and controls? I think the lawyer needs to look up what a monopoly actually is.
There is only one place developers are allowed to sell iOS apps and therefor only one place users can buy iOS apps. The developer sets the price and Apple charges the developer a 30% fee.
Anti-trust issues only arise when Apple tries to control the developer outside of their platform… “You can only develop your app for iOS and no other platform.” This is one of the tactics that got Microsoft in trouble in the late 90’s when they prohibited OEMs (Windows licensees) from selling PCs installed with other operating systems, more specifically, Linux.
“How exactly does Apple have a monopoly over a software platform it owns and controls?”
By owning and controlling it. Just sayin’.
and ps, monopolies are not always a bad thing
Monopolies, in and of themselves are illegal. It is the abuse of monopoly status that brings the Sherman Anti-trust Act into play.
Apple has brilliantly structured iTunes to avoid Sherman Additionally, Apple does nothing to control the business model of independent developers.
I would be shocked if the half life of this suit extends beyond this month.
Whoops, the above should have read: “are NOT illegal”.
Yet most apps are free to use with adds in them
Please stay closed! PleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease don’t let just any piece of crap into the App store!
So when is the lawsuit coming from free APP makers who have not made money to pay their bills because people are to cheap to pay 0.99 cents to opt out of ADs and support the platform??? (but use the app)
By the way, typical app makes $5 -100 in a YEAR from AD only revenue and it costs $99 per year to have the app in the app store.
I can’t fit a Mercedes engine in my Ford – I’m suing!!!
I can’t get a Whopper at McDonalds! That clown Ronald impinges on my culinary freedom!
hand baskets….. hand baskets I tell ya………..