Is a complete ban on sales a foregone conclusion? The apple was suddenly investigated, and Cook's heart was shattered

Since Steve Jobs released his first iPhone, Apple has quickly defeated Nokia and Motorola with its powerful A-series chips and smooth iOS system, becoming a new benchmark in the global mobile phone market. Under the operation of commercial genius Cook, the market value has exceeded $3 trillion, becoming the world's most valuable technology company.

Although the iPhone is highly sought after by consumers, Apple is not without competitors. For example, Huawei defeated Apple with a huge global market share advantage in 2019 to become the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer. Unfortunately, the chip sanctions in the United States have put Huawei phones in an awkward situation where they have no cores to use. In the coming years, Apple's dominant position in the smartphone industry may not be shaken.

However, thanks to the US sanctions against Huawei, Apple has reestablished its unbreakable industry position. Instead of reflecting, it has become even more arrogant and greedy, using the guise of "technology and environmental protection" to treat consumers as "leeks" and cancel the delivery of chargers. If consumers want to use iPhones normally, they must purchase chargers at high prices. Some consumers once questioned Apple's true purpose of canceling the delivery of chargers, but what they received was an arrogant response from Apple executives: I am the industry standard, and if you are not satisfied, you can use an Android phone!

Apple's arrogance and hegemony naturally come at a heavy price. As early as October last year, Brazil imposed a penalty of 140 million yuan on Apple for canceling the delivery of chargers, confiscating a large number of iPhones, and ordering Apple to resume the delivery of iPhones sold in Brazil, otherwise they would be banned from entering the Brazilian market.

In addition, the EU issued a ultimatum on Apple's refusal to comply with EU laws and its insistence on using Lightning interface, which clearly stated that if Apple could not use a more unified, environmentally friendly and advanced Type-C charging interface in 2024, it would be completely prohibited from entering the European market.

It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has clearly stated that it will fully promote the standardization of charging interface standards for electronic products. When CCTV reported this news, most of the images showed Apple's electronic products such as iPhone and iPad. From the footage reported by CCTV, it is not difficult to see that China is also very dissatisfied with Apple's insistence on using the Lightning interface, and has issued a warning on Apple's side by side.

Huawei and other mobile phone manufacturers have already used Type-C charging interfaces and have received strong support from countries such as the European Union. Why does Apple still insist on using the outdated Lightning interface, and even use encryption chips for this? Mainly, Apple can charge several billion yuan in patent licensing fees every year.

However, what broke Cook's heart was that Italy began to attack Apple just after the EU issued the ultimatum. According to foreign media reports, on May 11th, the Italian antitrust agency AGCM officially announced that Apple is using its absolute control over the AppStore to collect high "Apple taxes", suspected of monopoly, and will officially launch an antitrust investigation against it.

AppStore is the only way for iPhone users to download application software. Application developers must go through Apple's payment and settlement channel in order to put the software on the AppStore, and Apple will charge a 30% handling fee. This not only greatly dampened the enthusiasm of application developers, but also caused huge economic losses to iPhone users. In order to ensure their own profits, application developers usually pass on the "Apple tax" to consumers, which is known as "the wool comes from the sheep".

In fact, Italy is not the first country to resort to the "apple tax". In 2022, the Netherlands imposed a weekly penalty of 5 million euros for Apple's high "apple tax" until Apple completed its rectification. Although the wealthy Apple did not take this punishment seriously in the early stages, as the amount of fines continued to increase, Apple ultimately chose to compromise and reach a settlement with the Netherlands by reducing the "apple tax".

Nowadays, Apple is not just a pure technology company. Its presence often appears in the "technology war" initiated by the United States. It not only participates in the United States' actions against Russia's technology sanctions, restricts Russian users from using core functions such as iPhoneApplePay, but is ultimately banned by Russia from using all Apple electronic products by civil servants. It also becomes a tool for the United States to suppress China's technology enterprises.

In the past few years, Apple has used unfounded excuses to kick 34 Chinese suppliers such as Ophigo out of the Apple supply chain, causing almost devastating damage to these companies. CCTV, which cannot bear to watch, immediately issued a warning: Chinese enterprises should accelerate their diversified layout and get rid of Apple dependence. In addition, Apple also used its huge influence to coerce downstream enterprises such as Foxconn to "escape" from the Chinese Mainland market and move its production lines to India and other Southeast Asian regions.

The Chinese market is Apple's largest market and a concentration of Apple suppliers. If Biden's "decoupling and chain breaking" policy with China is strictly implemented, Apple's fate will definitely not be good. You should know that China has already begun to take equal countermeasures against the United States, and the scrutiny of Meiguang is just the beginning.

Many American media outlets have stated that if Apple continues to adhere to its "I am the rules" attitude, it will gradually be abandoned by the market in the near future, moving from strength to decline. Even if the United States strongly supports it behind the scenes, it will not be helpful.