United States against Apple is a lawsuit written for the general public, an 88-page press release designed to be read aloud on cable news programs.
A lawsuit is, functionally speaking, a communication between lawyers and a judge. Because it is a specialized missive aimed at a specialized audience, it can become very technical and jargony; This is especially true when it comes to specific areas of law such as antitrust or complex litigation sectors such as technology. technology lawsuits are often obscure even to tech experts, interspersed with bizarre software terminology that makes virtually no sense outside of a court of law. (For example, antitrust law loves “middleware” and copyright law loves “technological protection measures.”)
Although the dreaded “middleware” does appear in United States against Apple, you can barely tell it was written by lawyers. You just have to compare it with the 1998 complaint in United States vs. Microsoft to see what I mean. Apple's lawsuit even starts out like it's trying to be a magazine article:
In 2010, a senior Apple executive emailed Apple's then-CEO about an announcement for the new Kindle e-reader. The ad began with a woman using her iPhone to purchase and read books on the Kindle app. She then switches to an Android smartphone and continues reading her books using the same Kindle app. The executive wrote to Jobs: one “The message that cannot be overlooked is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android. “It’s not fun to watch.” Jobs was clear in his response: Apple would “force” developers to use its payment system to retain both developers and users on its platform. For many years, Apple has repeatedly responded to competitive threats like this by making it harder or more expensive for its users and developers to leave than by making it more attractive for them to stay.
A scene! Characters! The invocation of Steve Jobs himself! Personally, I think this paragraph could use extensive editing before publication, but again, It's supposed to be a lawsuit, not a work of narrative nonfiction..
In fact, this opening paragraph isn't even numbered: legal documents like this usually have all paragraphs numbered. Instead, it is part of a strange little literary curtain that has been caught just before the index. That's not against the rules; note that United States against Google (presented 2023) has a single, concise introductory paragraph outside the numbered section, but United States against Apple it goes on for two whole pages before going into accusations.
Compare this with the opening paragraph of the complaint in the Department of Justice's successful 1998 antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft (which, of course, is correctly labeled paragraph 1):
1. This is an action under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act to restrain anticompetitive conduct by defendant Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”), the world's largest provider of software for personal computers (“PCs”), and to remedy the effects of his past unlawful conduct.
It's almost like lawyers in United States vs. Microsoft He wrote a document asking a judge to apply the Sherman Antitrust Act to the personal computer market. What a nap!
Meanwhile, although United States against Apple has a lawsuit swimming somewhere within its enormous mass, it is, for the most part, a fairly readable litany of all the annoying things Apple has done to me, personally, over the years. Bubbling green for my friends and loved ones? Can't buy Kindle books in the Amazon app? The way I can't change the NFC touch to do anything other than open Apple Wallet? The lag of all non-Apple smartwatches when paired with the iPhone? The Department of Justice knows this. The Department of Justice cares. I feel seen.
There are even a few tantalizing paragraphs in which the DOJ compares the need to periodically update AAA video game titles to the onerous App Store review process and then concludes that “Apple's conduct made cloud streaming apps “They were so unattractive to users that no developer designed one for them.” the iphone.” At no point does the DOJ allege that Apple is the reason I can't play AAA games on my iPhone… but it isn't either No Saying that. Is Apple coming between me and my video games? I wonder, as I unconsciously reach for my pitchfork.
From cloud streaming games to CarPlay, the Justice Department's complaint attempts to address the burning complaints of all types of nerds and more. The only thing missing is a rant about how increasing screen sizes are victimizing me, a person with small hands. (At Thursday's press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland did not mention how Sarah Jeong would like to see the SE return to its 2016 size.)
One can almost forget that this is a lawsuit and not just the observations collected from a single highly motivated poster in The edge comments section, until you reach page 57. There, the document suddenly changes voice and finally becomes a formal communication addressed to a judge. “Mobile phones,” the complaint primly states, “are portable devices that enable communications over radio frequencies rather than landline telephone lines.”
It's fun to address the legal distillation of nerd rage at a line level, but there's also an overarching narrative here that the Justice Department is trying to push, a narrative with potentially enormous ramifications. At Thursday's press conference, as well as in the complaint, the Justice Department went to great lengths to call back United States vs. Microsoft. It's obvious why, of course. It's not just that it was the last really big W The feds took home the world of tech antitrust: The current battle over iOS's walled garden, in fact, looks a lot like the browser wars of yesteryear that sparked the Microsoft antitrust case.
But while those specific similarities are relevant to a judge, they are not so relevant to the general public. What the Justice Department wants from this callback is bigger and more important. He wants to unite these two cases in the popular consciousness and, in doing so, define himself and his role in history. “When Apple began developing consumer mobile devices, it did so in the context of United States vs. Microsoftwhich created new opportunities for innovation in areas that would be critical to the success of Apple's consumer devices and the company itself,” the complaint reads.
The Justice Department wants the public to think of Apple's success as something that was handed to them, in part, by an antitrust division that acts as a recurring hammer on a 20-year stopwatch. The Department of Justice is a benevolent forest guard, serving the United States economy with controlled burns. Microsoft had to be crushed in the early years for Apple to prosper; Now Apple must be crushed to usher in the next era of technology. (The complaint's relentless harping on “super apps” may be because someone at the Justice Department is desperately trying to get Elon Musk's extremely fickle attention.)
Let's say we're not exactly in a place where we can do antitrust A/B testing.
Of course, the long saga of microsoft The antitrust action (especially if you count the lingering tail of the appeal case) coincided with many things: the founding of Google, the dot-com crash, the foundings of Tencent and Baidu, the “election” of George W. Bush, September 11, the Iraq war. The United States is no longer in the same position as before: in diplomacy, war or technology. And the essential dynamics of the American technology sector, not just the names of the main players involved, look very different from how they did just 10 years ago, much less 20. United States vs. Microsoft It almost certainly had a substantial effect on the tech industry and society at large, let's just say we're not exactly in a place where we can do antitrust A/B testing. The Justice Department wants to write a narrative about its role in the tech ecosystem and the American economy, but whether that narrative actually rings true remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the opening volley in his battle against one of the favorite companies It's a spectacular start, in part due to an unusual degree of legal insight into the human psyche. The complaint addresses tech fans directly rather than about them and before a federal judge. After all, the more involved you are in the Apple ecosystem, the more opportunities you have to be bothered by Apple. And those hundreds of little annoyances, the DOJ says, are Apple's fault, It is not yours. It's an extremely tempting invitation to get mad at them. And no one can generate hate as strongly as nerds can, and sometimes it's because the nerds are right.
