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The monopoly is that phones have become so important for daily life that being able to install software on them is nearly a requirement for normal living. It's

The monopoly is that phones have become so important for daily life that being able to install software on them is nearly a requirement for normal living. It's like having two car manufacturers and they both recommend "approved" gas where they scrape 30% of the revenue as a tax. Anyone that wants to make their gas "approved" has to pay 30% of the revenue. The difference between apple and google is that Google hides a little switch in the glove compartment that lets you use any gas if you want to. Apple on the other hand will void your warranty and try their hardest to break your car if you dare use unapproved gas or try to modify the car to use it You could argue that you could just not drive a car if you didn't want to pay extra for approved gas... The core issue is that Apple has created a marketplace for something so pervasive in daily life and has a complete monopoly on it. If the marketplace was smaller or phones less important consumers could easily say "I don't like the rules" and walk away

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
I think it's going to be extremely hard to prove that either customers or developers suffer because of the monopoly. The pricing point is clearly wrong. Most apps are priced ridiculously low for the value they offer. I don't see that Apple can be blamed for that. The lock-in part is also wrong. Developers are free to develop apps for Android (or Windows, if they really want to). There are even cross-platform all-in-one dev kits. (Admittedly they're not great, but it's possible to use them to do some large percentage of the dev work on a cross-platform app and then fill in the native details later.) There are certainly elements that suck. Discovery on the app store is awful, and continues to be awful. Too many apps are still abandonware, even after last year's clean out. Ironically developers might benefit more from better curation. A smaller number of really solid, bug-free apps would be better than the current mess of "I have no idea if this is going to crash or not" free for all. But that's not really an anti-trust issue. I'll be very surprised if this case gets far. It's clearly on thinner ice than the Bell, IBM, and MS antitrust cases. If anything there's a better case to be made for hauling Google in for its near-monopoly on ad sales and search, and its habit of screwing over site owners who rely on ad revenue.
- protomyth 10y ago
  > I think it's going to be extremely hard to prove that either customers or developers suffer because of the monopoly. Not having any options other than a webview for web browsing is certainly damage enough particularly with zero day exploits.
sbuk 10y ago
>The core issue is that Apple has created a marketplace for something so pervasive in daily life and has a complete monopoly on it. That is a natural monopoly and not unlawful. They do not use the store to leverage position in other markets, which is where antitrust comes into play.
- nrjdhsbsid 10y ago
  They actively prevent developers from building their own app stores and competing with apple's own apps. Bell telephone had a similar monopoly. They owned the phone lines and wouldn't allow any non-approved equipment connected. Your view really depends on if you see the phone primarily as a platform for apps or as an "apple phone" with some apps as neat little add-ons. Antitrust comes about when a company has a high enough market share AND uses this market share to bludgeon any competitions. Apple created a market, they own the method of distribution, and they actively use their position to prevent competition with their own products and stop alternative markets from forming. Much like Bell
  - meanduck 10y ago
    > Antitrust comes about when a company has a high enough market share AND uses this market share to bludgeon any competitions. I feel like only a non-elected, inner circle within Govt gets to decide what these condition will return today. Even if the whole country is split 50/50, its only their retval that matters. In ideal society, a legal debate is nothing to be proud of. People's lives/properties depends on it.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  It's not a "natural monopoly" when it is created by restrictive policies attached to another product; that's textbook monopolization by leveraging market power in one market to monoplize a different market which, as you note, is an antitrust violation.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

I think it's going to be extremely hard to prove that either customers or developers suffer because of the monopoly. The pricing point is clearly wrong. Most apps are priced ridiculously low for the value they offer. I don't see that Apple can be blamed for that. The lock-in part is also wrong. Developers are free to develop apps for Android (or Windows, if they really want to). There are even cross-platform all-in-one dev kits. (Admittedly they're not great, but it's possible to use them to do some large percentage of the dev work on a cross-platform app and then fill in the native details later.) There are certainly elements that suck. Discovery on the app store is awful, and continues to be awful. Too many apps are still abandonware, even after last year's clean out. Ironically developers might benefit more from better curation. A smaller number of really solid, bug-free apps would be better than the current mess of "I have no idea if this is going to crash or not" free for all. But that's not really an anti-trust issue. I'll be very surprised if this case gets far. It's clearly on thinner ice than the Bell, IBM, and MS antitrust cases. If anything there's a better case to be made for hauling Google in for its near-monopoly on ad sales and search, and its habit of screwing over site owners who rely on ad revenue.

protomyth 10y ago
> I think it's going to be extremely hard to prove that either customers or developers suffer because of the monopoly. Not having any options other than a webview for web browsing is certainly damage enough particularly with zero day exploits.

sbuk 10y ago

>The core issue is that Apple has created a marketplace for something so pervasive in daily life and has a complete monopoly on it. That is a natural monopoly and not unlawful. They do not use the store to leverage position in other markets, which is where antitrust comes into play.

nrjdhsbsid 10y ago
They actively prevent developers from building their own app stores and competing with apple's own apps. Bell telephone had a similar monopoly. They owned the phone lines and wouldn't allow any non-approved equipment connected. Your view really depends on if you see the phone primarily as a platform for apps or as an "apple phone" with some apps as neat little add-ons. Antitrust comes about when a company has a high enough market share AND uses this market share to bludgeon any competitions. Apple created a market, they own the method of distribution, and they actively use their position to prevent competition with their own products and stop alternative markets from forming. Much like Bell
- meanduck 10y ago
  > Antitrust comes about when a company has a high enough market share AND uses this market share to bludgeon any competitions. I feel like only a non-elected, inner circle within Govt gets to decide what these condition will return today. Even if the whole country is split 50/50, its only their retval that matters. In ideal society, a legal debate is nothing to be proud of. People's lives/properties depends on it.
dragonwriter 10y ago
It's not a "natural monopoly" when it is created by restrictive policies attached to another product; that's textbook monopolization by leveraging market power in one market to monoplize a different market which, as you note, is an antitrust violation.