Credit: Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
- The US Department of Justice is suing Apple for violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from its devices.
- Apple is accused of disrupting super apps that would make it easier to switch from iPhones, suppressing the messaging experience with Android, limiting smartwatch functions to the Apple Watch, and more.
Apple has been in the eye of the storm in several anti-competition suits and regulations worldwide, with the major ones being in the EU. The company had to make some significant changes to iOS to comply with the requirements arising from these suits and regulations, such as opening up iOS to third-party app stores. In another blow to the company, the US Department of Justice is suing Apple for violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from its devices.
The Verge reports that the US Department of Justice has completed its five-year-long probe into Apple’s business and concluded that Apple used its power over app distribution on the iPhone to thwart innovations that would have made it easier for consumers to switch phones. Apple refused to support cross-platform messaging apps, limited third-party digital wallets and non-Apple smartwatches and blocked mobile cloud streaming services.
