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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Apple gets away with it because they don't have a monopoly. There's a large variety of non-Apple smartphones and tablets you can buy.

Microsoft's behavior was restricted because they were a monopoly. There were alternatives to Windows, but the court decided that they were sufficiently insignificant that Windows was effectively a monopoly. That changes the rules.

Windows market share at the time was about 95%, Apple's smartphone market share is in the neighborhood of 15-20%.

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Mike and others, do you realize how different the web on Android has become from the web on iOS? The gap between the web's abilities on the two operating systems is growing quickly. Grab an iPhone and an Android phone, and visit http://pwa.rocks

You'll see very different behavior in Chrome for Android and Chrome for iOS because the latter is required to use WebKit. There are some really big problems with the present situation. The web's fundamental promise of a cross-platform consistent runtime is basically broken, and consumers, developers, and businesses all suffer significant but mostly invisible harm.

That's a separate question from whether they're doing something illegal. Illegality depends on abuse of monopoly power, not on the technical problems it causes for the industry.

Good reading material here https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

I'm not sure how that's relevant. Note that I'm not defending Apple, merely explaining why they can legally get away with behavior so similar to what got Microsoft in trouble in the 90s.

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't monopoly law (at least in EU) dependant on the companies market power (e.g. the ability to sway market / damage consumer rights), not market share?

I imagine so, but it's hard to be in a position like that when you have less than 20% of the market.

But Apple had 90% of profits, isnt that a better metric of monopoly?

Monopolies are interesting because they limit choice. Increased profit may be a side effect, but that's it. It's accidental, not essential, to the definition.

it's actually 104% of profits now http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2016/11/04/apple-ipho...

Not at all.

Is a monopoly suit the only legal way to instigate change?

i would hope so.

do you want your users to legally force you to change your product because it's not what they want?

We're not talking about "users" we're talking about browser apps that are arbitrarily prohibited from participating properly.

So the "makers" of browser apps should be considered to have a more important stake in Apple's product than the users?

Users of iOS don't have any input over Apple policies governing whom may publish what so how are they relevant?

But if you replace "users" with "Apple executives" and the end result is Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera, and anyone who cares to may create an unimpeded browser... then absolutely that voice should carry more weight than "Apple executives" on this occasion.

A new law could do it. Of course Silicon Valley claims that they are so ingenious that it would be a crime against humanity to regulate them.

Don't worry,they'll just create another start-up to inexplicably solve this problem with a new trendy web service.

Voting with your wallet is easier and often more effective. Apple had to be stubborn here because a full Chrome and Firefox (with extensions and apps) could potential hurt their app store revenue.

As I understand antitrust law, it is legal for a monopoly in one market to expand into an adjacent market. However, if that monopoly stifles competition in the adjacent market in a way that harms consumers, that monopolist’s acts are illegal.

By virtue of Apple integrating the operating system with hardware, iOS has a defacto 100% monopoly on devices compatible with Apple's Ax series chips (e.g. A9 in iPhone 6s). There's nothing illegal about that.

The market for Ax series devices is now larger than the Intel-compatible PC market was at under consideration during the Microsoft antitrust case.

The question then is whether Apple's policies stifle innovation and harm consumers. I think the answer is "yes".

I don't think the law defines monopolies so narrowly that it's useful or interesting to narrow it down to "devices compatible with Apple's Ax series chips."

Back in the MS monopoly days, there were a ton of things people wanted to do where they had no choice but to buy Windows if they wanted to do them. Today, there is very little that people do which requires an iOS device. Apple has many closed features (the App Store, iMessage, iCloud) but open equivalents are available. Almost nobody is buying an iPhone because they need an iPhone in particular to do something. They're buying iPhones because they need a smartphone, and they prefer an iPhone.

I am very much not a fan of Apple's approach here, I just don't see anything illegal about it.

I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't need a monopoly on the entire smartphone market to have monopoly power...

Apple already got in trouble for price fixing - a violation of the Sherman antitrust act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_Inc.

Related to iOS and competition within it, see

http://fortune.com/2016/06/30/elizabeth-warren-apple-google/

http://www.thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/272399-time-to-prosecut...

Hopefully more to come from me on this topic...my channel here. https://medium.com/@ryanpollock

Apple was in trouble for collusion.

In this instance Apple and the other publishers probably did so specifically because they didn't have a monopoly on ebooks.

> iOS has a defacto 100% monopoly on devices compatible with Apple's Ax series chips

Sure, and equivalently Apple has a 100% monopoly on Apple devices. How does that make sense? One problem with anti-trust laws is that the market is not well-defined. Is the relevant market Apple phones? Smartphones above some price point? Smartphones at a price point? All smartphones? We can always pick and choose to make it seem like a company has a monopoly.

I think markets can be defined in a bunch of ways. I think the litmus test is whether a market is large - and whether people are adversely affected. Hopefully more to come here https://medium.com/@ryanpollock/

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