podcasts from rival third-party streaming
services like Spotify, Amazon Music,
Pandora, and TIDAL.
Why? Apple has received a barrage of criticism
in recent months about its unfair advantage,
especially now that it’s expanding into new
services like Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple
Arcade, and Apple TV+. As a result, the giant
is reportedly discussing whether to ‘open up’
its operating system to third parties, allowing
users to choose their own default options like
Gmail instead of Apple Mail, Spotify instead of
Apple Music, and Chome instead of Safari. It has,
until now, been impossible to replace Apple
apps with third-party alternatives by default,
a sticking point for devs who complain they
can’t compete with Apple’s preloaded apps.
Apple’s Safari web browser and Mail apps, for
example, are two of the most-used apps on the
iPhone and iPad, and though rivals Chrome,
Firefox, Google Mail and Microsoft Outlook
are available, users will automatically be sent
to Safari and Mail when they open links in
an iMessage or WhatsApp. 58.06% of iOS
users stick to the default Safari browsing
experience in the United States, despite Safari
having just a 3.60% market share on laptops and
desktops. By comparison, Chrome has a 67.63%
share of the desktop market. Of all emails
opened, 40% of them are done so in Apple’s
iOS Mail app, followed by Gmail with 24%.
ANTI-TRUST CASES
One of Apple’s biggest challenges is that its
closed system prohibits users from choosing
their own third-party apps as defaults. Rivals