Apple throws a stick into antitrust regulators’ spokes

In iOS 14, likely to the chagrin of antitrust regulators worldwide, Apple will allow users to choose their own default browser and email apps, if they wish to substitute for Apple’s Safari and Mail. One thing that won’t change is that all iOS browsers must to use Apple’s rendering engine for security/privacy. Changing default apps is limited only to browser and email, for now. For maps and music the default remains Apple Maps and Apple Music.

In addition, Apple on Monday announced two changes to the App Store app review process that will be implemented this summer. First, developers will not only be able to appeal decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline itself. Second, for apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. Developers will instead be able to address the issue in their next submission.

Both the default browser/email feature and App Store changes for developers will make the jobs of antitrust regulators in the U.S. and abroad more difficult, if they’re looking to somehow pin antitrust charges on Apple, a company, by the way, without a unit share monopoly position in smartphones, tablets, personal computers, smartwatches, or streaming media devices (which, of course, already positioned the trustbusters’ efforts smack in the middle of Ridiculousland in the first place).

I don’t think anybody reasonable is going to come to the conclusion that Apple is a monopoly. Our share is much more modest. We don’t have a dominant position in any market… We are not a monopoly. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, June 2019

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last June: Of course Apple is not a monopoly in any market in which it participates. Apple doesn’t have a dominant position in any market in unit share. Just in profit share. 🙂