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The latest lawsuit against Apple, this time by the Department of Justice, focuses on a lot of things (though less so on the App Store than recent legislation from the European Union).
Aside from reining in “super apps” and gaming cloud apps, the lawsuit could force Apple to make significant concessions or pay higher fees across its products and services.
Bloomberg’s Mark Garman wrote in the latest Power On newsletter that while some changes are possible, there’s one item that remains off the table for Apple right now: Android. Said it was iMessage.
RCS is coming this year, but Garman said “the company will probably never enable iMessage on Android.”
Garman noted that Apple likely needs to “make it easier to transfer data from an iPhone,” adding, “But the one big item that I don’t think will ever change is bringing iMessage to Android. .
“Apple is adamantly opposed to it,” he added.
What changes could Apple make?
Garman seems confident that iMessage won’t jump to the green side of the fence, but he believes there are some things Apple can do to respond to the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
Apple currently strictly controls the NFC chips in its devices used for Apple Pay in the name of security and privacy, but it also earns royalties from Apple Pay transactions. The company has opened up some NFC restrictions in Europe, and engineering work is underway to do the same in the United States, Garman said.
He also suggested that Apple should “do more to support third-party devices, including watches, on the iPhone,” in response to complaints that the company is making it difficult to introduce fitness trackers other than the Apple Watch.
“In addition to opening up its NFC chip to U.S. third parties, Apple is likely to expand support for third-party smartwatches, app stores, in-app payment services, physical trackers, browser engines, and voice assistants.”
After the uproar over Apple’s changes in the EU, it will certainly be interesting to see how much they change to satisfy the Justice Department.
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