[hraedon]

This is a silly argument: Microsoft's bundling of IE resulted in real damage to another company (Netscape) that had a viable and independent competitor product. Beeper doesn't have an independent product: they have a hacky workaround that Apple fixed.

What Microsoft did with IE isn't really analogous to Apple refusing to let another company free ride on their infrastructure. This isn't even as egregious as patching iTunes to break the Palm Pre sync was, and the legality of that action seems pretty settled by now.

[haswell]

> What Microsoft did with IE isn't really analogous to Apple refusing to let another company free ride on their infrastructure.

Zoom out for a moment and take Beeper out of the picture. The issue is not Beeper specifically, it’s the underlying reasons that Beeper even exists.

If you buy an iPhone and want to interoperate with friends/family on Android, the default experience is extremely broken.

Apple’s behavior here is directly driving users away from Android, not because Apple is better, but because it’s the only way to actually use the native experience.

I don’t know if the cases are equivalent, but there’s certainly a case to be made that they’re in a similar category.

[hraedon]

If I want to "interoperate" with friends and family who use Android, I have zero issues doing so. SMS works fine, and the default experience being "bad" is really completely unrelated to any sort of antitrust concern. If we want more features, they're an App download away.

Apple offers a product that has seen significant success in a small number of markets versus android, including the US. Dressing up what is ultimately the normal bump and tumble of competition in a market as antitrust because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly.

[FridgeSeal]

> If you buy an iPhone and want to interoperate with friends/family on Android,

Then use a cross platform messaging app. FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord. I have all of them on my phone.

> the default experience is extremely broken.

It’s not broken. Apple devices have a low-friction “hot path” for communicating with other apple devices. That’s it. Want to use it? Get an apple device.

Apple isn’t obliged to make its messaging app work for everyone, on all platforms.