Apple needs to be pissed on from a height - I wonder if they have bribed the monopoly inquisition they face in the USA/Europe
Apple/iOS currently has less that 20%:
* https://www.strategyanalytics.com/strategy-analytics/blogs/d...
* https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share...
* https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor
Android, split across multiple manufacturers, has >80%.
And as I said, people were just as free to install other browsers than IE on Windows and Chrome on Android, but it was still considered bad monopolistic behaviour and they got punished for it.
Check the ruling against Microsoft: they were slapped down for this because they had a monopoly in the field of PCs / computers, and they (tried to) leveraged that monopoly into a monopoly for browsers.
Android is the dominant smartphone platform (per units shipped), so Google is closer being considered a monopoly. Apple does not have a monopoly in smartphones or computers, so I'm failing to see how any parallels here.
The best argument you can hope to make is that a duopoly exists between Android and iOS, and the duopoly together should be treated as monopoly for practical purposes.
But claiming monopolistic behaviours and associated restrictions on a company that has 20% of the market is silly.
iPhones have a majority of the marketshare in the US. It's silly to ignore that.
> Check the ruling against Microsoft: they were slapped down for this because they had a monopoly in the field of PCs / computers, and they (tried to) leveraged that monopoly into a monopoly for browsers.
If we follow your logic, there were other platforms that did not run MS Windows. They only had a monopoly on Windows computers.
Looks like 50/50, at most:
* https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/
Maybe Android even has a little more:
* https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...
If the government wants to regulate the duopolist together as a monopoly, then let us say so and argue the pros/cons of that strategy. But saying that iOS has a monopoly when they do not is what is silly.
> If we follow your logic, there were other platforms that did not run MS Windows. They only had a monopoly on Windows computers.
If Sun had a monopoly on scientific workstations, and they tried to leverage that to crush competition in another market, then that would make sense. But the only market in which there was a monopoly was consumer PCs, Microsoft had it, and they were found guilty of abusing it:
> The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling them is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took a while to download or purchase such software at a store.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Can you buy an alternative product and have nothing to do with Apple's store? Yes. They aren't a monopoly.
Are they a big player? Yes. But they aren't a monopoly. If you don't like it go somewhere else. Vote with your dollars and impressions.
They have more than 50% of global app sales revenue; Apple's App Store revenue is about 80% higher than Google Play. They also have about 57% of the "premium" ($400+) smartphone market. That has a strong impact on the ability for developers to create and sell apps.
Not to say that Google is innocent either; they've started adopting some of Apple's practices as well. Unless you're a masochist, going outside the Apple/Google ecosystem is not really a viable option.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/03/app-revenue-tops-39-billio...
https://www.gsmarena.com/counterpoint_flagship_smartphone_sh...
I've never heard that expression before. Was it translated to English from some other language?