Apple Wants ‘Implausible’ iPhone Antitrust Case Thrown Out

Apple wants an antitrust case accusing it of dominating the smartphone market thrown out.

The tech giant says the U.S. government’s suit “bears no relation to reality” and should be dismissed by a federal judge, Bloomberg News reported Thursday (Aug. 1), citing a court filing.

The Justice Department — joined by several state attorneys general — is suing Apple for allegedly keeping competitors from accessing its devices’ software and hardware, thus making it harder for consumers to switch phones.

“We allege that Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market, not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits, but by violating federal antitrust law,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time. “If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly.”

In its latest filing, Apple denies that it holds a monopoly, and says it is not required to give software developers any more access to iPhones than they already do.

“The implausibility of the government’s claim that Apple’s conduct has eroded smartphone competition is underscored by the complaint’s implicit recognition that the smartphone market exhibits ongoing innovation and vigorous competition,” Apple’s filing said.

The company added that it faces “robust competition from other smartphone manufacturers around the world, including Google and Samsung.”

As Bloomberg noted, the suit is part of a larger competition effort by the Biden administration, one that has been mostly focused on big tech, with companies like Apple, Google and Meta facing antitrust action in both the U.S. and Europe.

In other Apple news, the company this week began rolling out developer betas for its devices that offer an early look at Apple Intelligence, its artificial intelligence (AI) suite.

“Apple’s been a bit behind in the AI race,” Bob Rogers, data scientist and CEO of Oii.ai, told PYMNTS on Wednesday (July 31). “By enhancing Siri and summaries with AI, I think users will be able to take advantage of ‘conversational’ searching.”

The new betas include writing tools, natural language search capabilities for Photos, priority message sorting for Mail and Siri improvements across iPhone, iPad and Mac platforms. Advances in voice search capabilities could substantially streamline the shopping process, that report noted.

“Users can speak naturally and conversationally, meaning searches are less focused on hitting keywords,” Steven Athwal, CEO and founder of The Big Phone Store, told PYMNTS. “So it’s faster and easier to find what they need, and search is done quicker.”