The DOJ spent years threatening to bring antitrust charges against Apple, and now that it finally has, the US government seems incapable of participating in its own case.

The United States Department of Justice brought antitrust claims against Apple in June 2024. After a year of appeals, the case was pushed into going forward.

In the months since, things have been at a standstill as no one seems ready to budge on discovery requests. The DOJ complained of Apple refusing document requests in September, then Apple complained similarly about Samsung in April, and now a joint filing viewed by AppleInsider shows more pointing fingers.

In this instance, it's Apple accusing the United States government and the 14 agencies being subpoenaed of halting the case.

From the filing:

The United States, having brought this action, cannot avoid its discovery obligations by putting Apple through an endless procedural runaround. The parties have discussed these issues repeatedly over the past year, but those efforts have not resulted in a resolution. Apple is entitled to obtain relevant, narrowly targeted materials from a small subset of the United States' own agencies, and Apple therefore respectfully requests that the Court order the United States to produce the materials requested in Apple's final compromise proposal, attached as Appendix A.

The DOJ's arguments can be whittled down to "it's too hard to provide these documents that have little relevance anyway." It's not a very good argument when Apple's requests appear relevant.

If the United States is suing Apple on antitrust grounds, then how the agencies view Apple within the US government has some relevance. They choose iPhones for government use for a reason, and Apple believes, rightly, that those reasons would contradict the grounds of the antitrust case.

Round and round we go

I'm not a lawyer, but I would wager that the US government's refusal here is an obvious attempt to avoid looking foolish. The case is very thin as it is, and federal agencies rely on Apple's technology because of its closed and secure nature.

As a reminder, here's Apple's rebuttal against the five claims made by the DOJ:

  • DOJ says Apple stifles the success of "super apps," despite the fact that Apple's rules allow and support such apps, and indeed a multitude of "super apps" exist on the App Store today
  • DOJ says Apple blocks cloud streaming games, even though Apple allows streaming-games both over the web and in the App Store where they can stream games directly to users
  • DOJ says Apple degrades third-party messaging apps, even though they are widely available and enormously popular on iPhone already
  • DOJ says Apple limits the functionality of third-party smartwatches, even though they can effectively pair with iPhone, share data to and from the iPhone via a companion app, and take advantage of certain functionalities Apple has developed which are expanding over time
  • DOJ says Apple withholds access to iPhone hardware necessary for third-party digital wallets to use tap-to-pay technology, however, Apple developed and provides a mechanism that protects user

These were barely credible claims when they were first made by the DOJ in 2024, but they're less so today. Even the smartwatch one has changed with iOS 26.3 thanks to notification forwarding to third-party smartwatches.

If this becomes a debate of "yeah, Apple does these things but not in a way we like," I doubt it'll make it very far. However, since everyone involved is dragging their feet through discovery, including Apple, Samsung, and now the US government, I have no doubt we'll be talking about this case for years to come.