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Apple has 57% of the US phone market: https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/us-smartphone-market-share

just because they have a high percentage, it doesn't mean they should be pushed to divest it. Google is likely found to be severely abusing it's powers beyond what you can actually see on the surface

> Google is likely found to be severely abusing it's powers beyond what you can actually see on the surface

Yes agree. But we know Apple does the same. I don't think divestment is a good solution for Apple, but there is a clear concentration of market power that causes problems.

> Apple doesn't have a similar position in any space though, or do they?

Apple has exclusive control over a market (AppStore), which has almost 2 million different products (Apps), 820,000 suppliers (app publishers) and over 1.3 billion customers (active iPhone users) which conducts more trade ($1.1 trillion) than the entire GDP of Luxemburg.

If that's not a monopoly i don't know what is.

Yes, Apple has exclusive control over the Apple ecosystem. I'm sure a lot of Apple users would like greater control over their devices.

But the choice isn't between Apple and not having a phone. Android exists, and as long as its a viable choice, Apple isn't a monopoly.

> Android exists, and as long as its a viable choice, Apple isn't a monopoly.

Not only is Apple a monopoly, they become one, and maintain it illegally.

    US Justice Department Sues Apple for Monopolizing Smartphone Markets[1]

    The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market[2]

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

Just to be clear, the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit but they have not actually won it. Until a judge or jury rules in their favor (and appeals are exhausted) you cannot cite the mere existence of a lawsuit as proof of anything. Keep in mind that Epic also filed a lawsuit claiming Apple was a monopoly but could not prove it in court.

And yet Android, which is more open than Apple in all respects, is a monopoly.

I really don't think you can give a rational explanation other than the courts are mentally troubled. They should have cracked down on both Epic cases or neither.

The relevant market for them is smartphones and smartphone apps, and again, Apple doesn't have a monopoly there. Most markets have concentration effects and players that dominate the market to a certain degree, that doesn't automatically make them a monopolist, it depends on how they got there and what exactly they do to keep or build out their position in the market. By your definition Valve is a monopolist in the gaming market due to their size and dominance, but that's likely not true either.

Anticompetitive behavior would be if they used their power to make it more difficult for people to buy Android phones e.g. by entering into exclusivity deals with cell service providers or electronics stores so that you could only find Apple products there (i.e. T-Mobile would only sell iPhones with their contracts and you wouldn't find any Android phones except in some small speciality shops out of town). That's what Google is doing in its markets among other things, i.e. pay tons of money to ensure all virtual store fronts are only stocked with Google products and everything else is hidden behind.

Apple does of course show anti-competitive behavior to a degree, i.e. they purchase the entire production capacity of the most advanced semiconductor fabs to have exclusivity and preserve their edge, but again there are still other players in that market and competition still seems possible. If you want to compare that to what Google is doing in the search and ad space it would translate to them locking up almost all semiconductor suppliers in exclusivity contracts for 10 years so that no other company could ever build any advanced chips in large numbers.

> The relevant market for them is smartphones and smartphone apps

The relevant markets includes, but is not limited to that.

> Anticompetitive behavior would be if they used their power to make it more difficult for people to buy Android phones

Anti-competitive behaviour includes, but is not limited to that.

Either way regulators are taking action.

    US Justice Department Sues Apple for Monopolizing Smartphone Markets[1]

    The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market[2]

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

> By your definition Valve is a monopolist in the gaming market due to their size and dominance

Well, no. You can install games on your computer however you want.

If Steam was the only possible way to do so, then yeah I would say Valve had a monopoly.

(It's worth noting that Apple has already gotten in trouble for this - the EU has fined them billions and forced them to allow alternative app stores. Hopefully US regulators take inspiration and force them to do the same domestically.)

> Apple has exclusive control over a market (AppStore)

Epic tried to make this case already, but the judge ruled that the App Store is not a market that Apple can have a monopoly over.

The argument as to whether smartphones or the Apple App Store is the better definition of a market has been done to death at this point, right? IMO it would be more good faith to just reference the fact that this is a currently entrenched and impossible to reconcile matter of… opinion? Definition?

> If that's not a monopoly i don't know what is.

This level of certainty is not warranted.

> definition of a market

They are both markets in and of themselves, Apple themselves refer to it as a market place and it's a place where trade in particular goods occurs.

You can argue it shouldn't be a market subject to anti-trust laws but US and EU regulators would disagree.

> > If that's not a monopoly i don't know what is. > This level of certainty is not warranted.

Again, you can argue that it's a 'legal' monopoly, but 'legal' or 'illegal', it is a monopoly.

Monopolies are not illegal, but creating or maintaining a monopoly through anti-competitive means is and regulators in the US and EU are acting.

Steve Jobs wrote that "Apple would “force” developers to use its payment system to lock in both developers and users on its platform." https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline

While those are big numbers, determining if a company has a monopoly requires looking at the numbers and market share of competing companies as well.

There are no competitors to Apple for IOS App distribution.

Is the Google Play Store not the overwhelmingly dominant app market on Android? Yes, they are less restrictive and allow the potential for other app stores to exist, but based on market capture of their respective platforms I believe they are pretty comparable. I am struggling to find numbers to corroborate this, but Google has recently lost a case asserting that their Play Store dominance constituted a monopoly - which seems like it should certainly apply to Apple as well.

This is why regulators prefer talking about dominant position rather than just market share.

I think a lot of people aren't aware that monopolies are not illegal in the US. It is completely legal to run a business that is a monopoly.

What is illegal are anti-competitive practices that a business might employ in an attempt to create or maintain a monopoly. A business that violates these laws might already be a monopoly, or it might not be one.

> It's ridiculous to have this super powerful hardware and I can only run sanctioned apps on them instead of being able to install any kind of software I like.

Buy different hardware then. You know these things when you buy the device. It isn't a secret. If the device doesn't meet your needs, there are alternatives that do. The fact that there are adequately substitutable products available other than iPhone destroys any concept of "monopoly." Saying Apple has a monopoly on iOS is ridiculous -- they _are_ iOS.

> they're not even the biggest player in the smartphone market

I think worldwide numbers are skewing your data there, for antitrust only the US numbers matter and those are 59% for Apple on mobile.