Shares of Apple are under pressure this morning.
Bloomberg reporting that the Department of Justice could soon
sue the tech giant maybe today,
as soon as today for allegedly violating antitrust laws which
are
are they not in the eye of the holder more
than ever these days with this DOJ.
Yes. Yeah. With this Co joins us now with more.
Yeah. I think the big thing we should be looking
for if if this lawsuit does in fact happen,
is then where the App Store falls in.
Because there's this idea that this Epic Games lawsuit that
worked its way through the courts,
whether or not that kind of resolved the issue about
the App Store dominance,
that whole thing, the payments that they collect from the
developers and so forth.
So to what degree does the DOJ go after the
App Store?
Huge, lucrative business. But beyond that,
there are some like subcategories that they're likely going to
go after to the payments like we're talking about last
hour.
And also are you guys for,
you know the air tags those little,
I've got a few of them,
yeah, have to do with it.
So there's this company called Tile that makes a competing
product.
They companies like that they are upset because they don't
get necessarily full access to iOS and all the same
features a product like air tags hit my dog,
swallow it. Yeah, people put them on their dogs,
but they do. Yeah. You're not supposed to do that.
But why? That's what they say.
They you're not supposed to track your pets or people.
They don't want to be responsible when you on their
on their kids backpacks.
Yeah. The backpack is a good idea.
Yeah, they do that. So there there is a headline
from NPR
September of last year United States takes on Google and
biggest tech monopoly trial of the 21st century.
Does this top that? Yeah,
I feel like it does at least thematically.
I mean first of all Apple is a bigger company
hands down. It's a more beloved brand And here we
have the full force of the Department of Justice coming
after
their own, you know, our own company.
And it's also happening at a really interesting time.
If you think about it,
we're at the cusp of this AI revolution.
There's this idea that, you know,
Apple is behind on AI,
doesn't have a coherent story or a good consumer facing
product.
And then let's rewind back to a couple decades ago
when Microsoft was going through this at the cusp of
the mobile revolution and people were saying,
oh, they missed out on this because the government went
after Microsoft and therefore they missed the mobile revolution and
so forth.
Bill Gates said that. Bill Gates said that
as I have the ball here,
focus much more on. Exactly.
And so then you got to wonder,
does this become a distraction for Apple in the middle
of the AI revolution?
Exactly where it seems like Apple is a little behind.
Exactly. And that's going to be like a big theme
I'm going to be following over the next couple years
as this plays out in the court.
Does this distract them to the point where they can't
execute whatever AI vision that they have?
Is that an argument for a settlement for Apple to
say,
OK, we'll just do what we've already done with the
EU anyway?
It depends on what the lawsuit says.
Again, if it goes to the App Store in a
very significant way,
the way the EU has already done it,
then they're probably not going to want to settle.
They're going to want to fight it tooth and nail.
But if it's more minor things that they've already conceded
in the EU,
like you know, opening up the NFC for a different
payment processors or you know,
making it so different smartwatches could connect better to the
iPhone,
you know, non Apple watches and things like that,
Maybe they can see that and then you know they
can move forward with what they want to do.
But, you know, we've seen them fight everything.
It is really weird though.
You pointed out that this is such a beloved company
for consumers to see antitrust go after a company where
it doesn't look like there are complaints.
I mean, they're complaints from competitors,
of course. This is all the developed.
They're the angry ones, the developers.
And so you know the Department of Justice,
the Department of Justice has to make the exactly.
They have to make this case that,
you know, there's consumer harm and and and so forth.
I'll give you example, beloved company.
It's not just here in the United States right now.
Tim Cook is in Shanghai opening up their second biggest
store that they've ever did.
Their most expensive store next to the one up on
5th Ave.
or Eunice Union was just emailing me.
1000 people showed up. There's a I just saw a
picture of a guy wearing a vision probe trying to
meet Tim Cook at that.
So I mean this is a beloved company that is
going to have a really stressful time and they're taking
these PR blunders also with all these regulatory moves and
fighting in the EU, they they have kind of,
you know, dirt on their face with the way they've
been handling some of those regulations.
So you know that lessons learned over there that they're
going to have to apply once this lawsuit drops.
It's it's a this is a big deal.
You're thinking of other inappropriate jokes.
I can tell. No, not inappropriate jokes.
A great song called Sunday Morning Coming Down,
Johnny Cash. I woke up on Sunday morning,
No way to hold my head.
That didn't hurt. The beer I had for breakfast wasn't
bad,
so I had another one for dessert.
Then I fumble in my closet through my clothes and
found my cleanest dirty shirt.
Oh, Muhammad's cleanest. Muhammad's cleanest dirty shirt is maybe worth
using.
And I bet it's made of Under Armour.
Kris Kristofferson too. Yeah, yeah,
with the and Johnny Cash.
Alright, no, I was listening.
I was listening. I'm sure just you weren't looking over
there was not looking at things.
But that's where. Cleanest dirty shirt.
And that's a great. That's all.
Thanks. Who wrote it? Kris Kristofferson.
Or yeah, I think they wrote,
maybe wrote it together, 'cause it's a song by Jenny
Cash.
But songwriters Kris Kristofferson from
1972. Were you born? I wasn't.
Don't answer. You were not.
I'm. I'm at 85.
You you. I was born in 85.
You were born at night,
but it wasn't last night.
Exactly.