Apple's antitrust reckoning was a long time coming

Apple finds itself on the wrong end of the US Department of Justice in a case that industry pundits say was inevitable.

The iconic tech giant stands accused in a US District Court of abusing its dominance in the smartphone market to drive out competitors and intimidate developers into staying as exclusive partners.

Prosecutors say that the company is pushing both carriers and developers to stay exclusive to its platform or risk losing out on the millions of consumers who brandish the Apple logo.

"For many years, Apple has built a dominant iPhone platform and ecosystem that has driven the company's astronomical valuation," the DOJ wrote in filing its case with the New Jersey District Court.

"At the same time, it has long understood that disruptive technologies and innovative apps, products, and services threatened that dominance by making users less reliant on the iPhone or making it easier to switch to a non-Apple smartphone."

In short, the US government says that Apple has for decades used its market clout to muscle out other companies that had based their smartphones on the open source Android platform.

The lawsuit comes with no small hint of irony, as Apple was one of the catalysts in the 1998 antitrust decision against Microsoft for using its PC platform dominance to push away smaller competitors.

Apple has yet to issue a comment on the matter.

The suit seeks an injunction that would declare Apple a monopoly and force it to open up its APIs to third party developers.

According to industry pundit Rob Enderle, the shift by the US government was inevitable given the way the Cupertino giant waved its political clout and ties to previous administrations.

Enderle told The Stack that the protection Apple enjoys traces its roots back to the days when Steve Jobs rubbed elbows with Al Gore.

Those parties being gone, the Apple bigwigs no longer have protection and are left to pay the piper.

"[Tim] Cook’s almost rapid shift to margin increase at the expense of most anything else has been incredibly profitable for the company but also opened them up to this kind of government response," Enderle explained.

"The excessive margins Apple enjoys suggesting customer abuse and governments, particularly the Democratic party run Biden administration, tend to react poorly if they see customer abuse."

Enderle said that while the suit could be catastrophic for Apple, it was probably something that executives and shareholders should have seen coming when the tech giant aligned itself with Gore.

"Al Gore as a powerful Democrat made going after Apple impractical, but Gore is gone, and with him his protection," Enderle explained.

"So the while this seems sudden, this has been a growing problem for over a decade and there is a good chance it’ll cost Cook his job and break Apple’s margin advantage, particularly if, as is often the case, Europe responds with more aggressive action and catastrophic fines."