U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is leading an antitrust hearing on app store competition, today called Apple’s launch of AirTags “on time,” because it is the kind of conduct he intends to examine. Reuters.
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“It’s appropriate, given that this is the kind of behavior we’re going to talk about at the meeting,” she said, noting that criticism from the App Store and Play Store didn’t get enough attention.
The meeting “Applied Antitrust: Examining Competition in App Stores” is taking place today to examine app stores and mobile competition. Directors from Apple, Google, Tile, Spotify and Match Group will participate. Apple did not initially intend to send anyone to participate, but agreed to offer Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer after the senators complained.
Tile’s attorney general, Kirsten Daru, will also attend, and yesterday, Tile said he plans to launch the AirTags launch. Tile CEO CJ Prober said the company was “skeptical” about Apple’s goals with “AirTags”, given “the history of using the platform’s advantage to unfairly limit competition”.
We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition. Unfortunately, given Apple’s well-documented history of using its platform’s advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we’re skeptical. And given our previous history with Apple, we think it’s entirely appropriate for Congress to take a closer look at Apple’s business practices specific to its entry into this category. We welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues before Congress tomorrow.
Tile has known about Apple’s work on AirTag for some time and has brought it up in previous lawsuits because he is unhappy to have Apple as a competitor in the article tracking space. To avoid antitrust complaints, Apple waited to launch irAirTags until it already launched the Find Me Network accessory program, which allows third-party Bluetooth devices, such as item trackers, to integrate with the indAirTags app with irAirTags.
The indFind My network is open to Tile, but requires article tracking to work exclusively with Find My, and Tile already has an established article tracking application and its own network that uses smartphones for crowdsourced tracking purposes.
Apple said in a statement that it was working to build a platform that would allow third-party developers to thrive.
“We’ve always adopted competition as the best way to generate great experiences for our customers, and we’ve worked hard to build a platform in iOS that allows third-party developers to thrive,” Apple said in a statement.
Other companies that have long had competitive issues with the “App Store”, such as Spotify and Match, will also participate, and will complain about the restrictive rules applied by Apple and Google and the “App Store” taxes.
With the launch of the “App Store” competition, Fight for the Future launched an “Abolish the App Store” initiative that calls on people to sign a petition asking Congress to “end the” App Store “monopoly.
Fight the Future believes that iOS should work like other “general purpose” computing systems, giving users the freedom to install software directly on their devices without Apple’s permission.
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