All posts tagged: Apple Antitrust

Apple Sued for Pulling Co-Viewing App Rave From the App Store

Apple Sued for Pulling Co-Viewing App Rave From the App Store

Published by skeptic

Rave, a cross-platform service that lets users watch movies and TV shows together, today filed a series of antitrust lawsuits against Apple after Apple removed the Rave app from the App Store in August 2025. According to Rave, Apple cited “unspecified allegations of fraud and vague concerns about content moderation” when pulling the app. Rave alleges Apple targeted the service because Rave competed with SharePlay, and Apple wanted to corner the market on smartphone co-viewing. Rave claims that Apple also falsely labeled the Rave Mac app as malware, preventing Mac users from installing it. Discussion on Reddit suggests that Rave had unmoderated public chatrooms, pornography, issues with scams, and CSAM material. The Rave app was also labeled as malware by Kaspersky, BitDefender, Windows, and Google, suggesting Apple may have had reason to protect users from the app beyond limiting competition. Apple has not yet commented on the lawsuit or the app’s removal. Rave claims that it has now created “industry-leading” content moderation and age verification technologies, presumably to preempt Apple’s content moderation criticism. Rave was …

Apple Subpoenas Samsung in South Korea Over DOJ Antitrust Case

Apple Subpoenas Samsung in South Korea Over DOJ Antitrust Case

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Apple has asked a U.S. court to formally request internal Samsung documents from South Korea as part of discovery in the DOJ’s ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the company. The DOJ filed suit against Apple in March 2024, alongside a number of governments, alleging the company used App Store rules, developer restrictions, and control over key iPhone features to stifle competition. After Apple’s bid to have the case dismissed failed, the litigation moved into discovery. Samsung is central to the case. All four complaints identify Samsung as Apple’s “closest smartphone competitor,” and plaintiffs allege that Apple’s conduct caused Samsung to stop making smartwatches that connect to iPhone in 2021. Apple subpoenaed Samsung’s U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Electronics America, for documents, but the subsidiary declined to produce any records, arguing the materials are held solely by its South Korean parent. Apple says Samsung America lodged that objection 65 times across its responses. In a memorandum filed on April 7, Apple asked the court to issue a formal letter of request under the Hague Evidence Convention, an international mechanism …

Apple Faces Lawsuit Over Continuity Camera Patent and Antitrust Claims

Apple Faces Lawsuit Over Continuity Camera Patent and Antitrust Claims

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Apple this week got sued in a New Jersey Federal court by the maker of mobile video app Camo, alleging Apple stole its technology when the company integrated its Continuity Camera feature into iOS 16 in 2022. Released by London-based Reincubate in 2020, the Camo app enables iPhone and Android smartphones to be used as webcams for desktop-based video calls. Apple’s Continuity Camera serves a similar function within its own ecosystem, allowing an iPhone to be used as a wireless webcam with a nearby Mac that is signed into the same Apple Account. Reincubate said the tech giant copied patented features from its Camo app and incorporated them into its mobile operating system in order to “redirect user demand to Apple’s own platform-tied offering.” According to the lawsuit, Apple “actively induced and encouraged” Reincubate to develop and market Camo for iOS, then later copied its functionality and built it into iOS as Continuity Camera. “In most of those cases, Apple has not actively induced the developer to test and build software,” the lawsuit said. “Here, …

Apple Raised UK Banking Costs, Lawsuit Alleges

Apple Raised UK Banking Costs, Lawsuit Alleges

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A new UK class action lawsuit against Apple seeks billions in damages by alleging that the company unlawfully restricted competition in contactless payments on the iPhone through Apple Pay, The Guardian reports. The proposed opt-out collective action filed this week in the UK alleges that Apple abused its position in the market by limiting access to the ‌iPhone‌’s near-field communication (NFC) technology and charging fees to banks for the use of ‌Apple Pay‌. The claim seeks up to £1.5 billion (approximately $2 billion) in damages on behalf of an estimated 50 million UK consumers. The complainant argues that ‌Apple Pay‌ has effectively been the only contactless mobile payment option available to ‌iPhone‌ users in the UK since its launch in 2015. According to the filing, Apple declined to grant third-party developers access to the ‌iPhone‌’s NFC hardware and Secure Element, preventing rival wallets from operating on equal terms and leaving banks and card issuers with no alternative but to participate in ‌Apple Pay‌ if they wished to offer mobile contactless payments to ‌iPhone‌ users. The …

Apple Wins Another Round in AliveCor Legal Battle Over Heart Rate Tech

Apple Wins Another Round in AliveCor Legal Battle Over Heart Rate Tech

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Apple this week secured another victory in its ongoing legal dispute with heart monitoring company AliveCor, after a federal appeals court upheld a 2024 ruling that found Apple’s changes to the Apple Watch were lawful product improvements rather than anticompetitive behavior. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision that rejected AliveCor’s antitrust claims. AliveCor had argued that Apple illegally monopolized the market for heart rate analysis apps on watchOS when it replaced its Heart Rate during Physical Observation (HRPO) algorithm with its heart rate neural network (HRNN) algorithm in watchOS 5. AliveCor claimed that Apple changed the algorithm so that its ECG KardiaBand could no longer identify irregular heart rhythms – as part of an alleged effort to “eliminate opposition” in the heart rate analysis space – and requested that it reinstate the old algorithm. Apple argued that AliveCor did not have the right to dictate Apple’s design decisions, and that the request to support the older heart rate technology would require the court to be a day-to-day enforcer of how …

Apple Appeals .8 Billion UK Antitrust Ruling Over App Store Fees

Apple Appeals $1.8 Billion UK Antitrust Ruling Over App Store Fees

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Apple has asked the UK Court of Appeal to overturn a £1.5 billion ($1.76 billion) antitrust ruling that found the company overcharged millions of App Store users, escalating one of the most significant competition cases ever brought against the company in the country (via The Guardian). The application follows a decision in October by the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which concluded that Apple abused its dominant position by charging excessive commissions on ‌App Store‌ purchases between 2015 and 2024. The tribunal found that Apple’s control over app distribution on iPhones and iPads allowed it to impose commission rates of up to 30% that were higher than would have prevailed in a competitive market, resulting in consumer harm estimated to be worth £1.5 billion. The case was raised as a collective action on behalf of approximately 36 million British consumers. Under UK collective proceedings law, eligible consumers are automatically included unless they opt out, meaning that anyone in the UK who made ‌App Store‌ purchases during the relevant period could be entitled to compensation if …