Because they have tons of competition and don’t dominate the market. By revenue, android is way higher.
Monopolies have a few characteristics like barriers to entry and competition. Apple doesn’t command this because the market is mostly not Apple.
Monopolies have a few characteristics like barriers to entry and competition. Apple doesn’t command this because the market is mostly not Apple.
Apple has 60% of the mobile market in the US[1], and the App Store is responsible for more than 100% more revenue than the Play Store, too[2].
Regulatory bodies aren't concerned with layman definitions of monopoly[3]:
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-...
[2] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/
[3] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
"Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages."
Most anti-trust cases have historically been against companies with 90+% market share: Standard Oil, Bell Telephone, Microsoft. I'd love to see an example of a company that was found to have a monopoly with only 60% market share.
To get much beyond that I think you need some special advantage like govt protection. I suspect the patent system, which literally guarantees monopolies to companies in return for a fixed fee, creates a big advantage for the leaders in tech markets. Hence modern leaders last a lot longer with more market share (and way higher margins) than they should.
This includes:
* the app store
* subscription management
* payments
* any sort of digital media (music, movies, tv shows)
* browser engines...there literally is no way to release a different browser on iOS, even iOS "Firefox" and "Chrome" have to use Apple's WebKit binary
From myself in a lower thread
Interoperability has never been legally mandated in the past, but for most of history it has just "happened" because people could get around hostile designs (IBM PC clones anyone?).
The problem with the complexity of today's technology is that, it's no longer feasible for an upstart to make a "compatible" device. You can't engineer an "iOS capable" non Apple device or an Apple-compatible non-Apple OS, not because it is not legal but because it is not feasible technologically. There are ways to do legally clean reverse engineering (ReactOS anyone?) but you cannot get around chip level signature checks nor can you fab your own state-of-the-art chips.
This is pretty similar domain where it's happened:
No. This can't help the customer who already bought a device, because Apple can (and does) change the terms on which the device is used. It would be more fair to use the word 'rent' when you buy Apple's devices, because you don't truly own them, Apple does: It decides which apps you can run, and it can pull off the apps you need from the Appstore, and so on.
When Apple alters the deal, all their customers can do is pray Apple doesn't alter them any further. This IS a monopoly, and you can't use a different operating system on your iPhone if it would be rendered useless to you by Apple.
I don't like Apple's business practices either, but labels like monopoly and "rent"ing a device have clear definitions and Apple doesn't hit them. If anything this is a failure of regulations to catch up to the reality of technology.
The focus in the future should be mandating things like repair and interoperability.
> You can't use a different operating system on your iPhone if it would be rendered useless to you by Apple.
This is not true. First, all apps already installed are not automatically uninstalled just because they've been pulled from the store, you just stop getting updates. Secondly, even if Apple completely drops all app support for your phone, it does not make it "useless". The phone still does all of the basic functions it was advertised to do. Having a device get new features in the form of apps is not required, it's a nice to have. At best you maybe could make an argument for misleading advertising if any launch features were gone (see PlayStation otheros) but Apple have been very diligent to make sure that's not the case.