Apple slams DOJ case as misguided attempt to turn iPhone into Android

Apple is coming out swinging against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust case, just announced Thursday, which accuses the iPhone maker of being a monopolist with its thumb on a mobile chokepoint of its own making.

The lawsuit threatens to undo the features that make its smartphones different from the rest of the market, as Apple tells it — with the risk, should the suit prevail, of the iPhone ending up looking and feeling just like an Android phone. So it’s even managed to get a trolling swipe at Google into its defense.”

The suit, which is being filed by the DOJ and 16 state attorneys general, accuses the iPhone maker of anti-competitive exclusion across two markets the litigation will seek to establish — so-called “performance smartphones” and “US smartphones” — which are narrower market definitions than the smartphone market as a whole. The suit claims Apple holds a more than 70% share of “performance smartphones” and over 65% of the US smartphone market, respectively.

In a briefing with journalists following the DOJ’s announcement this morning, Apple dismissed these market definitions as gerrymandering on the part of government lawyers trying to make a monopoly case stick where it argues there is none.

It says the circa 20% global smartphone marketshare the iPhone holds is the only market definition that makes sense.

In wider remarks, Apple criticized the DOJ’s case as legally dubious and/or misguided — suggesting it’s an attempt to replicate the antitrust case the government successfully brought against Microsoft’s Windows OS back in the 1990s by desperately trying to squeeze Apple into the same mold.