Judge Lets iPhone Antitrust Trial Move Forward

from the not-such-a-good-day-at-apple dept

Tue, Oct 7th 2008 8:31pm — Mike Masnick

Last year, we wrote about an antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple for sending an update that disabled, or "bricked," the iPhones of people who had changed the firmware to accept outside programs. While Apple tried to push for a dismissal of the lawsuit, a judge has denied the motion to dismiss and will let the case carry on. While a full-on antitrust finding seems unlikely, there are elements of the case that may get Apple into trouble down the road -- and it all comes back to Apple's Achilles' heel: its desire to control absolutely everything, even after you've bought it. Depending on how this case works out, Apple may discover that it (legally) needs to learn to loosen the strings a bit.

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Filed Under: antitrust, bricking, control, iphone, lawsuits
Companies: apple

9 Comments

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chronos, 7 Oct 2008 @ 9:22pm

It's about time...
...and maybe Apple learn to let go of some other stuff too...
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- chronos, 7 Oct 2008 @ 9:23pm
  
  Re: It's about time...
  *ahem* WILL learn.. *ahem*
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Allen (profile), 7 Oct 2008 @ 9:24pm

Apple have got to be feeling quietly confident
Unless you narrowly define "the market" as two handset models designed by a single company, Apple are not in a position to prevent competition. Sure their entry caused quite a stir and the number of units shipped is impressive given they started with nothing, but it will be a long time before an apple firmware update prevents you from buying a Nokia.

It's not like Apple are secretly brainwashing Californians into fanatics that are no longer able to consider the alternatives, is it?
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erica stjohn, 7 Oct 2008 @ 11:30pm

All Your Base
All Your Base are Belong To Us

And here I thought that was a Microsoft thing.. then Google.. and now its an Apple slogan too..
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Genuinely Surprised, 8 Oct 2008 @ 1:18am

Wow and iPhone debate without all the senseless "I did not buy an iPhone and am therefore better than all you weak fools who did," talk. I am impressed...
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- Dosquatch, 8 Oct 2008 @ 3:44am
  
  Re:
  it's early yet, give it time.
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Kuato, 8 Oct 2008 @ 6:21am

re: Apple have got to be feeling quietly confident
Unless you narrowly define "the market" as two handset models designed by a single company, Apple are not in a position to prevent competition. Sure their entry caused quite a stir and the number of units shipped is impressive given they started with nothing, but it will be a long time before an apple firmware update prevents you from buying a Nokia.

It's not like Apple are secretly brainwashing Californians into fanatics that are no longer able to consider the alternatives, is it?

Just like when Windows had to play nice with other browsers. Having windows doesn't prevent you from buying Linux or MacOS, but the courts hammered MS none the less.
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- Allen (profile), 8 Oct 2008 @ 8:07pm
  
  Re: re: Apple have got to be feeling quietly confident
  Yeah but Microsoft had overwhelming PC market share that approached a monopoly. Suppressing application competition on their OS platform suppressed application competition period.
  
  Apple have a long way to go before they have overwhelming handset market share.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2008 @ 11:58am

Its your legal right to modify that phone if you so well chose. You paid for the phone, therefore you own it. Promotional offers are another thing, The best apple should be allowed to do is disable you from using AT&T due to "Terms of Service violation" And that's ONLY if you got your iPhone from a promotional offer. Then again, if they brick the iPhone through software, I'm certain that (Just like the PSP trying to stop homebrew) People will find a way to bypass it and "fix" their phones. Hell, I can take my PSP from literly no flash in memory and reload it with custom firmware using nothing but a modded battery and some third party software. Case-in-point... Screw with consumers and they'll find a way to screw you right back!
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