That kind of 'monopoly' isn't what people mean by 'monopoly'. They're thinking of things like telcos who have (or had, in some cases) government-granted monopo

That kind of 'monopoly' isn't what people mean by 'monopoly'. They're thinking of things like telcos who have (or had, in some cases) government-granted monopolies that prohibit potential competitors from even trying to compete, or they're thinking of cases like Microsoft back in the day when they used their leverage from a dominant position in one market to attempt to force out competitors in a different (but related) market. (By shipping IE for free at a loss to ensure that Netscape couldn't profit from selling a browser, for example.) That's why people deliberately incorrectly use the term when referring to Apple. They're trying to evoke that feeling of a big corporation with an unfair advantage. But that only works if Android doesn't exist, and BlackBerry doesn't exist, and Windows Phone/Mobile doesn't exist, and Symbian doesn't exist (which will be true soon, I guess!), and WebOS doesn't exist, and something prevents competitors from even trying to have their own mobile platform.