US Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is leading an antitrust hearing on competition in App Stores, called Apple’s AirTags release “ timely ” today because she wants to investigate this type of behavior, reports Reuters.
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“It is timely, as this is the kind of behavior that we will be talking about at the hearing,” she said, while also noting that criticism of the App Store and Play Store has not received enough attention.
The “Antitrust Applied: Examining Competition in App Stores” hearing is taking place today to examine App Stores and mobile competition. Executives from Apple, Google, Tile, Spotify and Match Group will participate. Apple initially had no intention of sending anyone to the meeting, but agreed to make Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer available after senators complained.
Tile General Counsel Kirsten Daru will also be in attendance, and yesterday Tile said it plans to introduce the launch of AirTags. Tile CEO CJ Prober said the company is “skeptical” of Apple’s goals with “AirTags”, given its “history of using platform advantage to unfairly restrict competition.”
We welcome competition as long as it is fair competition. Given Apple’s well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly restrict competition for its products, we’re unfortunately skeptical. And given our history with Apple, we think it is perfectly appropriate for Congress to take a closer look at Apple’s business practices specific to entering this category. We welcome the opportunity to further discuss these issues before Congress tomorrow.
Tile has been aware of Apple’s work on the AirTag for a while and has brought it up in previous legal proceedings because it is unfortunate to have Apple as a competitor in item tracking. To avoid antitrust complaints, Apple waited to launch AirTags until it already released the Find My Network accessory program, which allows third-party Bluetooth devices such as item trackers to be integrated into the Find My app in addition to AirTags.
The Find My network is open to Tile, but it requires item trackers to work exclusively with Find My, and Tile already has an established item tracking app and its own network that uses smartphones for crowdsourced tracking purposes.
Apple said in a statement that it has worked to build a platform that allows third-party developers to thrive.
“We’ve always embraced competition as the best way to create 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 struggled with competition with App Store, such as Spotify and Match, will participate and will complain about the restrictive rules used by Apple and Google and the App Store fees.
As the App Store competition hearing kicks off today, Fight for the Future launched a “Get the App Store” initiative calling on people to sign a petition demanding that Congress “end the” App Store “monopoly. “
Fight the Future believes that iOS should act like other “general purpose” computer systems, giving users the freedom to install software directly on their devices without Apple’s consent.
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