A lot of Apple's power here comes from the fact that they have a near-monopoly: not on any protocol, technology, or format, but on good industrial and UI design

A lot of Apple's power here comes from the fact that they have a near-monopoly: not on any protocol, technology, or format, but on good industrial and UI design. The situation with good design and usability today is similar to the situation with formats and OSes with Microsoft in the 90s.