Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been very critical of the new privacy features introduced by Apple in iOS 14. At the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg once again lashed out at Apple and called it one of their “biggest competitors.”

He highlighted that Apple’s iMessage comes pre-installed on iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices which gives it an edge and has allowed it to become the most used messaging service in the United States. Facebook has two extremely popular messaging apps — WhatsApp and Messenger, but none of them have been able to surpass the popularity of iMessage in the United States.

“Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work, which they regularly do,” he said. “They say they are doing this to help people, but the moves clearly track their competitive interests.”

The Facebook CEO also said that despite Apple taking the high road when it comes to user privacy and offering end-to-end encryption for iMessage, it stores user messages on its servers, unlike WhatsApp. Additionally, he again criticized Apple for its upcoming changes to how ad tracking will work on iOS and how it will affect small businesses negatively. Facebook had run full-page ads over iOS 14’s ad-tracking changes that led Apple to hit back and say that it is only “standing up for our users.”

We Want To Hear From You

Ironically, while Facebook is criticizing Apple for taking unfair advantage of its position to thwart competition, it is the former that is currently the subject of many antitrust issues. Do you think Facebook is right here? Do you think Apple is using its dominant position to push its own apps and services to iPhone and iPad users?