In a new response to the UK's competition watchdog, Apple has been very aggressive.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority published Apple's response to its Interim Report on mobile ecosystems, as well as responses from dozens of other companies.
Apple responded to the Interim Report with a detailed 47-page response that said the benefits of Apple's ecosystem have been set aside without reasoned basis, either ignoring them entirely or dismissing them on the basis of nothing more than speculation.
... the IR reaches conclusions about technologies, product design, and competitive impact derived from the unsubstantiated allegations and hypothetical concerns raised primarily by self-serving complaints from a handful of multi-billion dollar developers such as Microsoft, Facebook, Match, Spotify, and Epic, all seeking to make deep changes to the iPhone for their own commercial gain, without independent verification.
Apple expressed intense concerns about potentially having to redesign the phone to benefit a small group.
Apple is deeply concerned that the IR is proposing solutions to hypothetical problems that will result in real-world market interventions that could force it to redesign the iPhone to benefit a handful of powerful developers. The IR appears to assume that its proposed changes would be relatively simple. Yet many would require a complete re-architecting of a product that has existed for 15 years, has been constantly improved by Apple’s investment in IP and is valued and trusted by millions of consumers.
The security risks and the fact that users highly value that were the reasons why the proposal was shot down.
Remedies that jeopardize Apple's holistic approach to security would effectively remove the competitive differentiation between Apple and Android, taking this valued element of choice away from users.
Apple addressed the issues raised by the Interim Report, such as the restriction on the WebKit browser engine on the platform. It claimed that WebKit is innovative and responds to demand for features, such as adding newFunctionality to enable greater features for web apps.
Open Web Advocacy, a group of web developers who have raised the profile of Apple's WebKit restriction, disagree and say that Apple's ban of third party browsers is deeply anti-competitive. Barriers must be removed. Web apps can offer equivalent functions with greater privacy and security.
Apple highlighted the high level of customer satisfaction, ease of use, and performance, as well as the company's commitment to innovation and privacy. The Interim Report was dismissed by Apple and ruled out of the discussion of changes to the company's ecosystem.
...the findings in the IR are, in effect, nothing more than hypotheses about how Apple's ecosystem "may" have the "potential" to harm competition, being as they are untested and based on one-sided evidence. Such hypotheses are insufficient to warrant, never mind support, discussion of potentially radical remedies at this stage...
Apple urged the CMA to take a more fulsome analysis of the benefits that Apple's ecosystem brings to both consumers and developers, and to consider objectively the ramifications of any proposed interventions on consumers and competition in the markets that would be impacted.
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