Yahoo Finance Elizabeth Warren said 'group texts' show why Apple should be broken up as CEO Tim Cook vows to fight antitrust lawsuit
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has made a political career out of giving corporate America an earful, and recently she set her sights on Apple, the consumer tech behemoth that has recently found itself on the business end of a government antitrust lawsuit.
In a video posted on X, Warren highlighted how the iPhone maker's use of green text messages is “ruining relationships.”
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“Green texts on iPhones, they're ruining relationships,” she said. “That's right, non-iPhone users everywhere are being excluded from group texts from sports teams chats to birthday chats to vacation plan chats. They're getting cut out, missing out on plans and conversations. And who's to blame here? Apple.”
Warren was referring to the fact that Apple's iMessage system excludes non-iPhone users from many of the features and functions that make group chats so seamless for those with Apple devices.
She stated that this practice is merely one of the “dirty tactics” employed by the Cupertino-based tech company to “keep a stranglehold on the smartphone market." She went on to say the company should be broken up.
Not so coincidentally, in March, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple for its “broad-based exclusionary conduct.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently criticized the lawsuit in an interview with CNBC.
“I think the case is misguided, and we’re going to fight it,” he said. “It’s my job to make sure it doesn’t become a distraction."
Monopoly on smartphones?
A Justice Department press release lays out its case against the company: “Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others."
Likewise, Warren's criticism emphasized the company's outsized market prowess.
“Apple has used its monopoly on smartphones to lock Americans into services and amass billions of dollars in profits,” she asserted.
Apple indeed holds a significant position in the U.S. smartphone market — but perhaps not quite a monopoly. According to CounterPoint Research, Apple captured 62% of the U.S. smartphone shipment market share in Q4 of 2023.
Globally, Apple's market dominance is less substantial. CounterPoint Research reports that in that same quarter, Apple secured a 23% share of the global smartphone market.
Nonetheless, Apple runs a lucrative business. In the fiscal quarter ended Dec. 30, 2023, the company reported a net income of $33.9 billion.
Read more: Jeff Bezos and Oprah Winfrey invest in this asset to keep their wealth safe — you may want to do the same in 2024
‘Time to break up’
Warren's critique of Apple continued as she stated, “Apple even takes a cut every time you use tap to pay and has blocked a new app that would have let Android users finally use iMessage and get those blue texts.”
The app Warren referenced, Beeper, enabled Android users to send messages to iPhone users via iMessage, until Apple apparently shut it down.
In light of these concerns, Warren emphasized the need for action, stating, “It's time to break up Apple's monopoly now.”
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
