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Why? They have not engaged in any illegal practices—at least as far as anyone here knows—to secure this position, and the tablet market is in its infancy. If t

Why? They have not engaged in any illegal practices—at least as far as anyone here knows—to secure this position, and the tablet market is in its infancy. If the market were years-old and Apple was buying out competitors and paying retailers to not stock alternative devices, then there would be a problem. But they're not.

kenjackson 15y ago
Why? They have not engaged in any illegal practices—at least as far as anyone here knows—to secure this position, and the tablet market is in its infancy. This is something that people continously get wrong. What are perfectly legal practices for a non-monopoly may no longer be legal once you're a monopoly. For example, if Apple had a monopoly on mobile phones it might be illegal for them to block "replicated" functionality in their app store. Today its perfectly legal, but in a monopoly situation, its not. For example, one of the things that MS was accused of was not allowing OEMs to put Netscape shortcuts on the desktop. If Windows wasn't a monopoly that's a perfect fine requirement. And as it stands today, Apple has strict requirements for what can get preinstalled on their phone/tablet by carriers -- virtually nothing. Another thing MS was accused of by Netscape was withholding technical information. Apple does this today. In fact the Camera+ app, not only had to find technical information w/o docs, but once it did find the information, Apple removed their app from the app store. Imagine if MS removed Netscape once Netscape found the info they were looking for. MS was also accused of "Giving Internet Explorer Away". All of these new features in iOS are basically free. Again, giving away something at below "cost" is fine if you're not a monopoly, but might be illegal when you are one. MS was also accused of making it difficult (financially or technically) to remove IE. Again, you can't remove IE in WP7 or Safari in iPad, AFAIK. Both perfectly legal. Now I'm not saying MS was in the clear. They were in fact a monopoly and did these things. My point though is that Apple is treading this line with the iPad. With the iPhone they're too small of a market. But with the iPad being the dominant tablet (by a huge margin), they're behavior, which would be perfectly legal for the iPhone, is now questionable.
- tjogin 15y ago
  The point is that Apple isn't a monopolist. They like to inadvertently brag that they are, but they are not, thus any comparison with Microsoft's monopoly abuse is moot.

kenjackson 15y ago

Why? They have not engaged in any illegal practices—at least as far as anyone here knows—to secure this position, and the tablet market is in its infancy. This is something that people continously get wrong. What are perfectly legal practices for a non-monopoly may no longer be legal once you're a monopoly. For example, if Apple had a monopoly on mobile phones it might be illegal for them to block "replicated" functionality in their app store. Today its perfectly legal, but in a monopoly situation, its not. For example, one of the things that MS was accused of was not allowing OEMs to put Netscape shortcuts on the desktop. If Windows wasn't a monopoly that's a perfect fine requirement. And as it stands today, Apple has strict requirements for what can get preinstalled on their phone/tablet by carriers -- virtually nothing. Another thing MS was accused of by Netscape was withholding technical information. Apple does this today. In fact the Camera+ app, not only had to find technical information w/o docs, but once it did find the information, Apple removed their app from the app store. Imagine if MS removed Netscape once Netscape found the info they were looking for. MS was also accused of "Giving Internet Explorer Away". All of these new features in iOS are basically free. Again, giving away something at below "cost" is fine if you're not a monopoly, but might be illegal when you are one. MS was also accused of making it difficult (financially or technically) to remove IE. Again, you can't remove IE in WP7 or Safari in iPad, AFAIK. Both perfectly legal. Now I'm not saying MS was in the clear. They were in fact a monopoly and did these things. My point though is that Apple is treading this line with the iPad. With the iPhone they're too small of a market. But with the iPad being the dominant tablet (by a huge margin), they're behavior, which would be perfectly legal for the iPhone, is now questionable.

tjogin 15y ago
The point is that Apple isn't a monopolist. They like to inadvertently brag that they are, but they are not, thus any comparison with Microsoft's monopoly abuse is moot.