Apple's iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly

https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/21/apples-iphone-is-not-a-monopoly-like-windows-was-a-monopoly/

by redbell • 2 years ago

18 22 2 years ago

techcrunch.com

tanepiper• 2 years ago

Did Apple write this?

bell-cot3• 2 years ago

I doubt it.

The author makes a good point. Microsoft's Windows, having reduced the competition to ~3% market share, was pretty d*mn obviously a monopoly. Vs. competitors to Apple's iPhone still have ~36% of the U.S. and ~77% of the global market. (And with current political currents in China, the latter number may be headed for an upswing.)

However sincere the feelings of Apple-haters (or Apple-dominance-haters, or Apple-tactics-haters, or Apple-30%-cut-haters, or Apple-arbitrary-decisions-haters, ...), and however many good points they make - the actual legal case here relies on convincing a rather cold-hearted and skeptical old judge that Apple has a monopoly.

beardyw2• 2 years ago

You say "I doubt it" but offer nothing to support that view and instead rehash the arguments in the article.

_mlbt3• 2 years ago

I'm not convinced that Apple's dominance in the US is a result of anything other than simply producing a better product. I was an Android user for a decade and recently switched when the iPhone 12 came out.

This is going to read like an ad, but within 48 hours I realized that barring Apple really screwing things up, I was never going back to Android. It's simply better at almost everything I want a smart phone to do. Also, the integration with the rest of the ecosystem is superb. There is nothing else like it on the market.

I'll admit that there are things that Android does better. The biggest being the variety of hardware available, such as folding screens, gaming phones with built-in liquid cooling, or phones that work with styli for drawing and taking notes. However, when I consider the whole package, Apple is the one that will be getting my money for the foreseeable future.

Also the whole iMessage blue versus green bubble controversy is overblown. Nobody above the age of 18 cares. They may joke about it, but at the end of the day you just use something like WhatsApp or Discord if you need more features than what green bubbles in iMessage can provide.

toast0• 2 years ago

the actual legal case here relies on convincing a rather cold-hearted and skeptical old judge that Apple has a monopoly.

Monopoly here is legal jargon for market power. Apple doesn't need to literally hold the deed to the three phone properties, which would entitle them to charge twice the rent or build houses and hotels.

The global market provides interesting background information, but also doesn't have much weight for US anti-trust.

In the roughly 60/40 market that we have in the US, both OS developers likely exhibit strong market power and their related conduct is up for review. Do they use their market power in mobile phones to further distort the market for mobile phones in prohibited ways? Do they use their market power in mobile phones to distort other adjacent markets in prohibited ways?

Personally, I don't think DoJ is going to have a problem showing market power. It's clear that Apple has market power in many countries, including the US. There certainly are many countries where it doesn't, but lack of global market power isn't very relevant.

I don't know whether DoJ will be able to show abuse of the market power. IMHO, the best of the five examples they presented is smartwatches; did they establish dominance in the smartwatch category by limiting deep integration to only their smartwatches, and is that prohibited tying? But we'll see how that holds up at trial.

Cases against Google are more complex because Android allows significant manufacturer customization, so Android the OS has 40% market share, but Google the seller of phones has much less. And Google allows software developers to do a lot more with apps, for better and worse.

hislaziness• 2 years ago

The articles states the case is for apple's monopoly in the premium phone market. Yet it compares the market share with low cost android phones.

hnburnsy• 2 years ago

I wonder if Google and Apple are regretting killing Windows Phone, a third viable competitor would have taken away a lot of antitrust heat. Still hoping an alternative emerges someday.

karmakaze• 2 years ago

The suit alleges that the company has a monopoly in the premium smartphone market and uses a variety of illegal tactics to perpetuate that monopoly.
Leaving aside the details of those tactics and their legality...

Before the iPod, Apple had a monopoly in nothing. That was translated to the iPhone and building a closed ecosystem around it with engineered incompatibilities. It was mostly these tactics of questionable legality that leads to the situation at hand. It's one thing to deal with a current monopoly and see to break it up. But recognizing how that happened and preventing the means of becoming and maintaining a monopoly should be dealt with directly, rather than dealing with the consequences (of allowing the tactics) in each case.

fargle• 2 years ago

Apples iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly

Very true. It's more like if Windows, Intel, and IBM were the same company. And you couldn't buy compatible hardware from anyone else. And you couldn't buy their hardware without their bundled OS, apps and browser. And they didn't just bundle their preferred OS, apps, and browser, but prevented you from changing or removing them. And furthermore, would not let you install any other software except what they approved of. And, of course, would not approve anything that competed with their own products or that they just randomly didn't like. Oh, and if it broke, you had to buy the parts only from them and use their repair service. And if 3rd party repair is legislatively mandated, they just made compliance as worthless as legally (or not) possible, and just intentionally made repairs just about impossible anyhow.

And we all thought bill gates and the halloween memos, etc. were peak "evil".

ahaseeb• 2 years ago

I am not sure what can be classified as monopoly as it's pretty subjective. Is Tesla a monopoly in EV Cars ( or cars in general). I used to kinda anti apple but realized that post switching to iPhone 5, never went back tbh. Same with Mac and iPAD. It's certainly a better ecosystem but that's what MOAT is. Companies spend $$$ to build the MOAT. If a company can build a better product, they deserve to be on top.

I however have another issue with Apple with Apple Package. They discourage smaller carriers to work with them. To explain further - Apple don't allow iMessage, FaceTime, Visual Voice mail if you don't commit to buying a specific amount of devices. This kills smaller businesses. It's like Coca Cola not selling you their product if you're not walmart. You'll not become Walmart till you sell products but you're not allowed to get access to products that big retailers have. I think the case is positioned in a way that Apple should win

Apple's iPhone is not a monopoly like Windows was a monopoly

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