I remember the day I got my hands on my first proper iPhone.
Growing up, the concept of kids having cellphones was starting to become more common – my first phone was one of those old Nokia devices we only wanted so we could play Snake.
Then came the glorious flip phone (that I think absolutely shouldn’t have come back).
But the iPhone ...well... that changed everything.
No longer did we need an iPod to play music, a brick to make calls, and – eventually – a clunky desktop computer or thick laptop to access the internet.
It changed the world in a way, I would argue, that nothing had ever before.
And now the US government says Apple did so illegally.
Today, the US Department of Justice, as well as 15 other states as well as the District of Columbia launched a blockbuster lawsuit against the iPhone maker, accusing it of deliberately manipulating the market to ensure the dominance of the iPhone.
"Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market, not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits, but by violating federal antitrust law," Marrick Garland, US Attorney General told reporters in a press conference today.
There have been a lot of criticism over the years of the Apple ecosystem – that the iPhones were getting increasingly expensive (at JB HI-FI in NZ you can get an iPhone 15 Pro Max for $2299 which is, by any metric, a lot of money); that developers were being forced to innovate in a very constrained environment, where Apple took 30%of their revenue; and for iPhone users, among other things, that cross platform messaging or communication was not seamless (i.e. sending media between Android or iPhone devices was always frustrating, with messages and images sent from an Android phone appearing to be of lesser quality than iPhone-to-iPhone communication).
All of this, US authorities alleged, was by design.
"Monopolies like Apple's threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based. They stifle innovation. They hurt producers and workers, and they increase costs for consumers," said Garland.
The original iPhone was first announced in January 2007, with Apple founder Steve Jobs describing it as a combined iPod, Phone, and "internet communicator".
When it was launched later that year, it created a technological revolution but launched the value of Apple into the stratosphere over the coming years.
Now, the organisation is worth trillions of dollars and competes with Microsoft to be one of the most valuable companies ever created.
But there is a belief among some in the tech community that this latest lawsuit might ultimately end up being a good thing for iPhone users.
"I see these cases as usually being good for the consumer and bad for the shareholder," said tech analyst Paul Spain, of Gorilla Technology.
“I imagine what Apple will be doing is looking at what really matters for the Department of Justice, something that will make life easier for consumers, but it really will be a balancing act because the things we have talked about have helped Apple win the dominance in the market share that they have.”
However, Spain said Apple would likely be preemptively looking at what it could change.
“It might [eventually] mean a better video calling experience, better and seamless communication when people are going between Android and iPhone in the future – and probably a range of other things that have yet to be determined and settled on, but it seems quite unlikely that Apple will put their hands up and say ‘no we won’t do anything’
“I think they will be taking this incredibly seriously.”
The worst punishment the Department of Justice could dish out is to force a company to break up - something it hasn't ruled out doing in this case, even if it, at this stage, it would be highly unlikely.
Apple, for its part, rejects the allegations in the lawsuit and has vowed to fight it, saying today it was “wrong on the facts and the law” and would hinder in-house innovation.
It also said while Apple had control over 70% of the US market, it saw itself as a global company, with just a fifth of the world smartphones made by Apple.
Apple is not the first tech giant to be slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit – Meta, Google, and Amazon have also been sued.
However, it certainly seems the golden age of smartphone innovation is behind us, with the arm of the law rapidly catching up.
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