http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-wont-sell-nest-product...
Sounds like the same behavior. Google has been known to replace whole other start-up services or de-list them.
Android is a little better, but it's by no means totally free.
This sounds minor, but its absolutely a major reason why the stores aren't monopolies. I find it startling how few people on HN remember the fact that stores have a right to decide what they want to sell and not. We don't live in communist Russia. Walmart doesn't have to sell Whole Foods-branded food, H&M doesn't have to sell Mossimo clothes, Amazon doesn't have to sell Nest thermostats, Apple doesn't have to sell Pixel devices in their stores, and Google doesn't have to sell Adblocking software.
In every single one of these cases, its because the companies managing the stores have a business interest against selling the items.
Apple's case is different in a significant way. When they block a product from their store, they establish that none of the users on their systems are able to get the item legally. However, they can still use the argument that iOS is only one platform among any mobile platforms, they don't have a massive marketshare, and they aren't taking any actions in the realm of mobile platform adoption which could be construed as hostile against competition.
Moreover, the ad blocking features you get without root are a strict superset of the features that are possible at all on iOS.
You can do it without "circumventing the system software." Unlocking the system partition is a supported operation. Then just install a program that lets you run other programs as uid 0. This is not possible for normal apps to do because running as uid 0 means you are no longer subject to the permissions system.
Also, it's irrelevant because the whole point is that Google can't block the user from running whatever apps they like by blocking the app from the Play Store. Requiring root access is orthogonal to Play Store availability.
Users running their own apps as uid 0 goes directly against the security model. Nothing stops them from changing or completely discarding the security model on their own devices, but once again, that is completely orthogonal to blocking apps on the Play Store.
It is perfectly legal for Amazon to decide they don't want to carry Apple products in their store. If they decide they don't want to carry Apple products because they're releasing their own lines of phones and tablets, that may not be legal. Intent and context do matter.
To your first point, assuming Sherman is used, I believe US v Alcoa [1] is still the controlling case law. And you'd have a very hard time convincing a court that "smartphones made by Apple" constitute a product category over which it could have a 75%+ market share.
Or are there other laws under which action could be brought in this situation?
[0] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/articles/culture/total-share.med...
The day we give a person the right to sue a private company over their policies, we will essentially kill the free market.
Apple may own their property, but iOS-device owners own their devices, and Apple have no right to prevent them from running the software they wish to run on the devices they own.
Specifically it states: " The software (including Boot ROM code, embedded software and third party software), documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data that came with your iOS Device (“Original iOS Software”), as may be updated or replaced by feature enhancements, software updates or system restore software provided by Apple (“iOS Software Updates”), whether in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (the Original iOS Software and iOS Software Updates are collectively referred to as the “iOS Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and its licensors retain ownership of the iOS Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you."
If a person has agreed to these terms, I don't see how they can complain about Apple's policies in the future. The same software that isn't owned by the person, but is Apple's, now refuses to run Steam Link. The person who agreed to such terms had it coming, you can't blame Apple for that.
Is this contract written in a way that provides equitable consideration to the user for the provisions that solely benefit Apple?
Doesn't seem like it.
The ability of Apple to include those take-it-or-leave-it terms suggests a dominant market position (strong market power) held by Apple, regardless of other mobile device platforms.
The license is a "Contract of Adhesion" "where the terms and conditions of the contract are set by one of the parties, and the other party has little or no ability to negotiate more favorable terms and is thus placed in a "take it or leave it" position.
While these types of contracts are not illegal per se, there exists a very real possibility for unconscionability." (Wikipedia)
with unconscionability being "a doctrine in contract law that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Typically, an unconscionable contract is held to be unenforceable because no reasonable or informed person would otherwise agree to it. The perpetrator of the conduct is not allowed to benefit, because the consideration offered is lacking, or is so obviously inadequate, that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract."
What do you mean? If one doesn't want to agree with such terms, there are quite many android alternatives, some of which even better than iPhone/iPad in certain aspects.
Take it or leave it...
The App Store is a service owned, operated and paid for by Apple, so they should certainly get to decide what they allow on it.
Apple is in a similar positon. A lot customers depend on iOS devices and I am not sure Apple should be allowed to exclude competitors from the App Store at its discretion.
The degree to which iOS is or isn't a "monopoly" has a lot to do with how much freedom Apple has to make decisions like this.
> If you don't like them, fine, quit using their services
Which, again, for companies with a dominant market position is an entirely unreasonable proposition. Hence, laws.
The fact is once a company reaches a certain size different rules do apply. Here Apple is definitely abusing their control over the ecosystem to lock out a competitor. The question is is this control great enough to prevent anyone from truly competing with Apple, which is what anti-trust law is designed to protect against.
Just like you can buy a cheap secondary phone for Steam Link, you can join another company's "free shipping membership program" to buy your Nest (or just pay shipping or get it locally, like you said).
Regardless, I think the distinction is less clear than you make out.
How does having prime lock you into Amazon, at all? You're not disallowed to shop elsewhere after signing up for Prime. You don't even have to sign up for someone else's "free shipping membership program" to buy your Nest.
You're argument doesn't work for me.
* Pay more for delivery because not using Amazon Prime
* Pay more to buy an Android phone
When making this argument it's obvious that buying a new phone is much more expensive than Amazon Prime but this raises an interesting question; what is the financial threshold at which point one has to be considered a monopoly?
To be clear, I think Apple is shortsighted in this decision and the Steam Link app isn't actually very competitive with native games. But I'm not its target audience either, even though I have a decent library of Steam games (50+).
My guess is that this move is not really about Steam Link but about the next company to come along with something like "play Android games on your iPhone" functionality.
This is seemingly worse since at least you could still install Netscape back then.
"Yelp And TripAdvisor Team Up To Pile On Google Over Search Monopoly"
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/05/yelp-and-tripadvisor-team...