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But they're nowhere near "distressingly close" to a monopoly - even picking the most Apple friendly metrics, they have only 25% of the smartphone market, with A

But they're nowhere near "distressingly close" to a monopoly - even picking the most Apple friendly metrics, they have only 25% of the smartphone market, with Android constantly closing the gap (and e.g. Blackberry actually ahead of them in some areas). The Wii, on the other hand, has around 50% of the current generation console market. They seem to have a monopoly on marketplace hype, I won't doubt that. But to claim they've a monopoly on smartphones is just plain wrong.

ajross 16y ago
The iPhone is the first, and in some cases still the only, platform to target if you're doing anything in the mobile consumer space. RIM competes with businesses only, there is no meaningful "app market" there, nor with Windows Mobile. Android is doing well, but it remains a distant second.
chc 16y ago
Wrong metric. You may as well choose "Shiny plastic devices market" as "smartphone market," because neither directly affects third-party devs. What matters here is app market, and Apple is utterly dominant there.
- archgrove 16y ago
  So Apple has a monopoly on the iPhone app store - no great surprise there. I may as well claim that Microsoft need to open the 360 marketplace to my personal ideals, because they have a monopoly on licensing XBox 360 games. The Android app store certainly exists, and is doing quite well. The web is free for all platforms. Apple don't, by any realistic measure, have a monopoly on application sales for smartphones. They just couldn't - with only 25% of the smartphone market, and an app store that targets only that 25%, how can they have a monopoly on smartphone app publication? What they might have is a monopoly on the wealthy gadget consumer with large amounts of disposable income to spend on apps. I'm not, however, that Apple's clever demographic targeting, coupled with the inability of their competitors to eat into this market via fair competition, is reason to force them to change their business model.
  - chc 16y ago
    Here's hard numbers: Apple was responsible for more than 99% of all mobile app sales last year. cite: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-for-994-of-mobile-app-sales-in-2009.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-... So I don't think we can say "they just couldn't" — in fact, they just did. And I might be skeptical about the numbers (Gartner isn't infallible), but every story I've heard from cross-platform mobile dev houses agrees with this — you'll get almost 100 times the sales on iPhone that you will on other platforms. I've never heard a contradictory story either, not even from Google trying to puff itself up. That's pretty much a monopoly.

ajross 16y ago

The iPhone is the first, and in some cases still the only, platform to target if you're doing anything in the mobile consumer space. RIM competes with businesses only, there is no meaningful "app market" there, nor with Windows Mobile. Android is doing well, but it remains a distant second.

chc 16y ago

Wrong metric. You may as well choose "Shiny plastic devices market" as "smartphone market," because neither directly affects third-party devs. What matters here is app market, and Apple is utterly dominant there.

archgrove 16y ago
So Apple has a monopoly on the iPhone app store - no great surprise there. I may as well claim that Microsoft need to open the 360 marketplace to my personal ideals, because they have a monopoly on licensing XBox 360 games. The Android app store certainly exists, and is doing quite well. The web is free for all platforms. Apple don't, by any realistic measure, have a monopoly on application sales for smartphones. They just couldn't - with only 25% of the smartphone market, and an app store that targets only that 25%, how can they have a monopoly on smartphone app publication? What they might have is a monopoly on the wealthy gadget consumer with large amounts of disposable income to spend on apps. I'm not, however, that Apple's clever demographic targeting, coupled with the inability of their competitors to eat into this market via fair competition, is reason to force them to change their business model.
- chc 16y ago
  Here's hard numbers: Apple was responsible for more than 99% of all mobile app sales last year. cite: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-for-994-of-mobile-app-sales-in-2009.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-... So I don't think we can say "they just couldn't" — in fact, they just did. And I might be skeptical about the numbers (Gartner isn't infallible), but every story I've heard from cross-platform mobile dev houses agrees with this — you'll get almost 100 times the sales on iPhone that you will on other platforms. I've never heard a contradictory story either, not even from Google trying to puff itself up. That's pretty much a monopoly.