Apple eviscerates DOJ antitrust lawsuit paragraph by paragraph in brutal response

Amid the antitrust lawsuit it’s facing from the United States Department of Justice, Apple has filed a brutal response in which it eviscerates the DOJ’s claims one paragraph at a time, pointing out the perceived errors in the accusations listed there.

Indeed, the company has argued that the lawsuit might “set a dangerous precedent” that would allow the government to decide on the design and function of technology, as well as endanger “the very principles that set the iPhone apart” from other devices, in the response filed on July 29.

As a reminder, the DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in March 2024, accusing the tech giant of an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market and listing examples of Apple’s decisions stifling competition and locking consumers into the iPhone ecosystem.

These included claims of Apple blocking cloud streaming games and ‘super apps’ with “broad functionality,” degrading third-party messaging apps, delaying support for RCS, restricting key functions from third-party smartwatches, and refusing to allow banking and payment apps to access the NFC chip in the iPhone.

Tearing apart DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit

In response, Apple has addressed each claim, paragraph by paragraph. Specifically, there are 236 paragraphs in Apple’s response, including the table of contents, preamble, headings, subheadings, and footnotes, all of which the tech behemoth’s legal team took the time to tear apart.

In a snarky start, the company admitted it was founded in 1976 and released an iPhone in 2007, but denied it had ever struggled to compete with lower-priced competitors. It also refuted any detail of the narrative that Apple didn’t want competition and had designed an ecosystem around preventing it.

Focusing on the five main points from the DOJ lawsuit, Apple has said that, first off, its rules allow and support super apps, arguing that there are plenty of such apps on the App Store today. Furthermore, it states that it allows streaming games both over the web and in the App Store, as well as that third-party messaging apps are widely available and popular on iPhone, as is RCS.

Plus, it claims that third-party smartwatches can effectively pair with an iPhone, share data to and from it via a companion app, and make use of certain functionalities developed by Apple. Finally, Apple argues it has developed and provides a mechanism that protects the consumer when using third-party digital wallets.

Meanwhile, some iPhone models might be facing a ban in the U.S., after the International Trade Commission (ITC) made a preliminary ruling that Chinese display maker BOE and seven of its subsidiaries infringed on Samsung Display’s confidential OLED technology.