Apple Harms Competition by Imposing Restrictions, Fees, and Taxes on App Creation and Distribution

A. Apple harms competition by imposing contractual restrictions, fees, and taxes on app creation and distribution

52. Apple’s internal documents show that, soon after the iPhone’s introduction and notwithstanding its success, the company began to fear that disintermediation of its platform and the commoditization of the iPhone would threaten Apple’s substantial profits from iPhone sales and related revenue streams.

53. Accordingly, Apple exercised its control of app creation and app distribution in key cases to cement the iPhone and App Store as the primary gateway to apps, products, and services. Apple often claims these rules and restrictions are necessary to protect user privacy or security, but Apple’s documents tell a different story. In reality, Apple imposes certain restrictions to benefit its bottom line by thwarting direct and disruptive competition for its iPhone platform fees and/or for the importance of the iPhone platform itself.

54. Three aspects of Apple’s efforts to protect and exploit its smartphone monopoly are worth noting. First, Apple exercises its control over app distribution and app creation to dictate how developers innovate for the iPhone, enforcing rules and contractual restrictions that stop or delay developers from innovating in ways that threaten Apple’s power. In so doing, Apple influences the direction of innovation both on and off the iPhone.

55. Second, Apple drives iPhone users away from products and services that compete with or threaten Apple. In doing so, Apple increases the cost and friction of switching from the iPhone to another smartphone and generates extraordinary profits through subscription services (like Apple’s proprietary music, gaming, cloud storage, and news services), advertisements within the App Store, and accessories like headphones and smartwatches.

56. Third, Apple uses these restrictions to extract monopoly rents from third parties in a variety of ways, including app fees and revenue-share requirements. For most of the last 15 years, Apple collected a tax in the form of a 30 percent commission on the price of any app downloaded from the App Store, a 30 percent tax on in-app purchases, and fees to access the tools needed to develop iPhone native apps in the first place. While Apple has reduced the tax it collects from a subset of developers, Apple still extracts 30 percent from many app makers. Apple also generates substantial and increasing revenue by charging developers to help users find their apps in the App Store—something that, for years, Apple told developers was part of the reason they paid a 30 percent tax in the first place. For example, Apple will sell keyword searches for an app to someone other than the owner of the app. Apple is able to command these rents from companies of all sizes, including some of the largest and most sophisticated companies in the world.

57. As Apple exercised its control of app distribution and app creation, Apple slowed its own iPhone innovation and extracted more revenue and profit from its existing customers through subscriptions, advertising, and cloud services. These services increase the cost of switching from the iPhone to another smartphone because many of these services—including its proprietary gaming, cloud storage, and news service—are exclusive to the Apple ecosystem, causing significant frictions for iPhone users who try to use alternative services on another smartphone. Moreover, Apple’s conduct demonstrates that Apple recognized the importance of digital products and services for the success of the iPhone while at the same time it restricted the development and growth of non-iPhone products and services—especially those that might make it easier for users to switch from the iPhone to another smartphone.

58. Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly. The cumulative effect of this course of conduct has been to maintain and entrench Apple’s smartphone monopoly at the expense of the users, developers, and other third parties who helped make the iPhone what it is today. Despite major technological changes over the years, Apple’s power to control app creation and distribution and extract fees from developers has remained largely the same, unconstrained by competitive pressures or market forces. That this conduct is impervious to competition reflects the success of Apple’s efforts to create and maintain its smartphone monopoly, the strength of that monopoly, and the durability of Apple’s power.

59. Apple’s monopoly maintenance has taken many forms and continues to evolve today; however, Apple’s anticompetitive and exclusionary course of conduct is exemplified by its contractual rules and restrictions targeting several products and services: super apps, cloud streaming apps, messaging apps, smartwatches, and digital wallets. By stifling these technologies, and many others, Apple reinforces the moat around its smartphone monopoly not by making its products more attractive to users, but by discouraging innovation that threatens Apple’s smartphone monopoly or the disintermediation of the iPhone. Apple continues to expand and shift the scope and categories of anticompetitive conduct such that the cumulative anticompetitive effect of Apple’s conduct is even more powerful than that of each exclusionary act standing alone.

i. Super Apps: Apple prevented apps from threatening its smartphone monopoly by undermining mini programs that reduce user dependence on the iPhone

60. For years, Apple denied its users access to super apps because it viewed them as “fundamentally disruptive” to “existing app distribution and development paradigms” and ultimately Apple’s monopoly power. Apple feared super apps because it recognized that as they become popular, “demand for iPhone is reduced.” So, Apple used its control over app distribution and app creation to effectively prohibit developers from offering super apps instead of competing on the merits.

61. A super app is an app that can serve as a platform for smaller “mini” programs developed using programming languages such as HTML5 and JavaScript. By using programming languages standard in most web pages, mini programs are cross platform, meaning they work the same on any web browser and on any device. Developers can therefore write a single mini program that works whether users have an iPhone or another smartphone.

62. Super apps can provide significant benefits to users. For example, a super app that incorporates a multitude of mini programs might allow users to easily discover and access a wide variety of content and services without setting up and logging into multiple apps, not unlike how Netflix and Hulu allow users to find and watch thousands of movies and television shows in a single app. As one Apple executive put it, “who doesn’t want faster, easier to discover apps that do everything a full app does?” Restricting super apps makes users worse off and sacrifices the short-term profitability of iPhones for Apple.

63. Super apps also reduce user dependence on the iPhone, including the iOS operating system and Apple’s App Store. This is because a super app is a kind of middleware that can host apps, services, and experiences without requiring developers to use the iPhone’s APIs or code.

64. As users interact with a super app, they rely less on the smartphone’s proprietary software and more on the app itself. Eventually, users become more willing to choose a different smartphone because they can access the same interface, apps, and content they desire on any smartphone where the super app is also present. Moreover, developers can write mini programs that run on the super app without having to write separate apps for iPhones and other smartphones. This lowers barriers to entry for smartphone rivals, decreases Apple’s control over third-party developers, and reduces switching costs.

65. Apple recognizes that super apps with mini programs would threaten its monopoly. As one Apple manager put it, allowing super apps to become “the main gateway where people play games, book a car, make payments, etc.” would “let the barbarians in at the gate.” Why? Because when a super app offers popular mini programs, “iOS stickiness goes down.”

66. Apple’s fear of super apps is based on first-hand experience with enormously popular super apps in Asia. Apple does not want U.S. companies and U.S. users to benefit from similar innovations. For example, in a Board of Directors presentation, Apple highlighted the “[u]ndifferentiated user experience on [a] super platform” as a “major headwind” to growing iPhone sales in countries with popular super apps due to the “[l]ow stickiness” and “[l]ow switching cost.” For the same reasons, a super app created by a U.S. company would pose a similar threat to Apple’s smartphone dominance in the United States. Apple noted as a risk in 2017 that a potential super app created by a specific U.S. company would “replace[ ] usage of native OS and apps resulting in commoditization of smartphone hardware.”

67. Apple did not respond to the risk that super apps might disrupt its monopoly by innovating. Instead, Apple exerted its control over app distribution to stifle others’ innovation. Apple created, strategically broadened, and aggressively enforced its App Store Guidelines to effectively block apps from hosting mini programs. Apple’s conduct disincentivized investments in mini program development and caused U.S. companies to abandon or limit support for the technology in the United States.

68. In particular, part of what makes super apps valuable to consumers is that finding and using mini programs is easier than using an app store and navigating many separate apps, passwords, and set-up processes. Instead of making mini program discovery easy for users, however, Apple made it nearly impossible.

69. Since at least 2017, Apple has arbitrarily imposed exclusionary requirements that unnecessarily and unjustifiably restrict mini programs and super apps. For example, Apple required apps in the United States to display mini programs using a flat, text-only list of mini programs. Apple also banned displaying mini programs with icons or tiles, such as descriptive pictures of the content or service offered by the mini program. Apple also banned apps from categorizing mini programs, such as by displaying recently played games or more games by the same developer. These restrictions throttle the popularity of mini programs and ultimately make the iPhone worse because it discourages developers from creating apps and other content that would be attractive to iPhone users.

70. Apple also selectively enforced its contractual rules with developers to prevent developers from monetizing mini programs, hurting both users and developers. For example, Apple blocked mini programs from accessing the APIs needed to implement Apple’s in-app payment (IAP) system—even if developers were willing to pay Apple’s monopoly tax. Similarly, Apple blocked developers’ ability to use in-app payment methods other than directly using IAP. For instance, super apps could create a virtual currency for consumers to use in mini programs, but Apple blocked this too. Apple, however, allows other, less-threatening apps to do so.

ii. Cloud Streaming Apps: Apple prevented developers from offering cloud gaming apps that reduce dependence on the iPhone’s expensive hardware

71. For years, Apple blocked cloud gaming apps that would have given users access to desirable apps and content without needing to pay for expensive Apple hardware because this would threaten its monopoly power. In Apple’s own words, it feared a world where “all that matters is who has the cheapest hardware” and consumers could “buy[] a [expletive] Android for 25 bux at a garage sale and . . . have a solid cloud computing device” that “works fine.” Apple’s conduct made its own product worse because consumers missed out on apps and content. This conduct also cost Apple substantial revenues from third-party developers. At the same time, Apple also made other smartphones worse by stifling the growth of these cross-platform apps on other smartphones. Importantly, Apple prevented the emergence of technologies that could lower the price that consumers pay for iPhones.

72. Cloud streaming apps let users run a computationally intensive program without having to process or store the program on the smartphone itself. Instead, a user’s smartphone leverages the computing power of a remote server, which runs the program and streams the result back to the phone. Cloud streaming allows developers to bring cutting-edge technologies and services to smartphone consumers—including gaming and interactive artificial intelligence services—even if their smartphone includes hardware that is less powerful than an iPhone.

73. Cloud streaming has significant benefits for users. For example, Apple has promoted the iPhone 15 by promising that its hardware is powerful enough to enable “next-level performance and mobile gaming.” But powerful hardware is unnecessary if games are played via cloud streaming apps. For a cloud game, the user experiences and plays the game on the smartphone, but the game is run by hardware and software in remote computing centers (“the cloud”). Thus, cloud gaming apps deliver rich gaming experiences on smartphones without the need for users to purchase powerful, expensive hardware. As a result, users with access to cloud streamed games may be more willing to switch from an iPhone to a smartphone with less expensive hardware because both smartphones can run desirable games equally well.

74. Cloud streaming also has significant advantages for developers. For example, instead of re-writing the same game for multiple operating systems, cloud platforms can act as middleware that allow developers to create a single app that works across iOS, Android, and other operating systems. Cloud streaming provides more and simpler options for offering subscriptions, collecting payments, and distributing software updates as well. All of this helps game developers reach economies of scale and profitability they might not achieve without offering cloud gaming apps and reduces their dependence on iOS and Apple’s App Store.

75. Apple wielded its power over app distribution to effectively prevent third-party developers from offering cloud gaming subscription services as a native app on the iPhone. Even today, none are currently available on the iPhone.

76. For years, Apple imposed the onerous requirement that any cloud streaming game—or any update to a cloud streaming game—be submitted as a stand-alone app for approval by Apple. Having to submit individual cloud streaming games for review by Apple increased the cost of releasing games on the iPhone and limited the number of games a developer could make available to iPhone users. For example, the highest quality games, referred to as AAA games, typically require daily or even hourly updates across different platforms. If these updates need to be individually approved by Apple, developers must either delay their software updates across all platforms or only update their games on non-iOS platforms, potentially making the iOS version of the game incompatible with other versions on other platforms until Apple approves the update. Neither option is tenable for players or developers.

77. Until recently, Apple would have required users to download cloud streaming software separately for each individual game, install identical app updates for each game individually, and make repeated trips to Apple’s App Store to find and download games. Apple’s conduct made cloud streaming apps so unattractive to users that no developer designed one for the iPhone.

78. Apple undermines cloud gaming apps in other ways too, such as by requiring cloud games to use Apple’s proprietary payment system and necessitating game overhauls and payment redesigns specifically for the iPhone. Apple’s rules and restrictions effectively force developers to create a separate iOS-specific version of their app instead of creating a single cloud-based version that is compatible with several operating systems, including iOS. As a result, developers expend considerable time and resources re-engineering apps to bring crossplatform apps like multiplayer games to the iPhone.

79. Cloud streaming apps broadly speaking—not just gaming—could force Apple to compete more vigorously against rivals. As one Apple manager recognized, cloud streaming eliminates “a big reason for high-performance local compute” and thus eliminates one of the iPhone’s advantages over other smartphones because then “all that matters is who has the cheapest hardware.” Accordingly, it reduces the need for users to buy expensive phones with advanced hardware. This problem does not “stop at high-end gaming,” but applies to “a number of high-compute requirement applications.”