Apple is a monopoly... on their own platform. Which by itself is not convincing, legally, at all. Sony has a monopoly on PlayStation games, Xbox has a monopoly on Xbox games, Nintendo has a monopoly on Nintendo games, Apple has a monopoly on iOS apps. What's to separate Apple from the game consoles? Legally, there is no such thing as a "general purpose computing device" despite the myths - they are legally in the exact same bucket. Just because a device can do more or less than another device (a game console versus a phone), or just because a device is subsidized by the apps (a game console, whereas iOS doesn't have that), doesn't change the status of it legally.
Would you say that PlayStation is a monopoly? Probably not - you know they are competing with Xbox and Nintendo. Apple makes the same argument and legally it has held up - they are competing with Android and Windows and Amazon. You don't have to like the competition from Android or Amazon, but legally, there's competition and that's all that matters. At least for right now.
It has happened before. The Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948 changed how movies were sold. None of them had a monopoly, but it was a case of vertical integration very similar to Apple's App Store.
Agreed but there are some important differences that make this a harder sell to the court:
1. No one is stopping developers from selling their apps in Android markets.
2. Apple hasn't attempted to prevent android app markets from existing.
3. Apple can make the argument that they own the market on merit, therefore their monopoly on selling iOS apps is legal.
4. It has to be proven this is bad for consumers. Apple is claiming their control benefits consumers, which again justifies their monopoly.
And as mentioned elsewhere, Apple may be forced to allow side-loading, but still require their 30% on all transactions. And nothing stops Apple from enforcing security policies on things like private apis on side-loaded apps.
Unfortunately I think the likely result is going to be a partial victory no one is happy with. :(
True, legal court cases can happen, but I can only address what the situation on the ground is right now. Also, the DOJ announced that rule is no longer-binding as of last year.
If you were, however, to penalize Apple; you would need to come up with a legal differentiation between a smartphone and a game console, as well as why the game console business model is moral and legal, but the locked-in smartphone market should be immoral and illegal. Considering there's no such thing as a "general purpose computing device" in the law; you would also need to come up with a pretty good explanation why Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft get to keep their exclusivity privileges but Apple loses theirs.
And that's a tricky nut to solve. Because you might say, "well, a smartphone can do way more than a game console." Well, that's only because the game console is so locked down - but a game console remains theoretically capable of anything a PC could do otherwise. If it wasn't for a lockout, you could install Windows on it and use it as a node in a supercomputer. Does that mean Apple would be legally fine if the smartphone was more locked down then? It's tricky.
>you would need to come up with a legal differentiation between a smartphone and a game console
Not really, they can just leave it up to the court's interpretation. "I know it when I see it" has been used in a court before. Just define it as a smartphone: No one is going to call a gaming console a smartphone, nor vice versa.
And applying a ruling to a specific industry isn't new either: see that Hollywood anti-trust case again. It was never applied to TV shows. Otherwise Netflix Exclusives wouldn't be a thing. Or any other "Only on Disney Channel/Cartoon Network/etc" show.
> “I know it when I see it” has been used in a court before.
It’s been used in a court, but not too much effect; the popular source of that is a discussion of “hardcore pornography” in a concurrence to a Supreme Court decision in an obscenity case which was notable for having a majority on the ruling in the case, but no consensus by any more than two justices on either a rationale for the ruling, or (among the dissenters) on the reasons for rejecting the ruling.
> Sony has a monopoly on PlayStation games, Xbox has a monopoly on Xbox games, Nintendo has a monopoly on Nintendo games, Apple has a monopoly on iOS apps. What's to separate Apple from the game consoles?
This is a very important point because Epic doesn’t like that either. There was very reasonable speculation that if they won this lawsuit they would immediately turn around and use it to sue the console makers.
"In the space of privacy-friendly phones, Apple has a monopoly."
A. There's no legally recognized market for "privacy-friendly phones."
B. "Privacy-friendly phones" is an ill-defined category, with "privacy" meaning different things to different people. Does a phone that blocks trackers qualify? Or does it have to protect me from rogue governments? There's no legal standard for what makes a device "privacy-friendly." Because of that, you are complaining that Apple has a monopoly in a market you just made up, which would be laughed out of court. You might as well claim Apple has a monopoly on phones with Lightning ports.
C. There's always GrapheneOS, which is free for anyone who wants it. There's also CalyxOS. You might claim they don't serve your purpose, but the law doesn't care an ounce about your specific purpose. There's generally-recognized competition in the vague category.
D. Having a monopoly is not illegal in the US. It's abusing your monopoly that's illegal. You would have to show Apple intentionally and specifically suppressed the development of alternative privacy-friendly phones by actively abusing their market power, which nobody is alleging.
> This is probably because when phones were first introduced in the previous century, people assumed that nobody would listen in on their conversations.
In the 80s, I could literally pick up my phone and hear neighbor’s conversations sometimes.
Also during the analog cell phone era, anyone could buy a receiver from Radio Shack and bypass the frequency block and listen to cell phone conversations.
> By the way, who decides what a legally recognized market is?
Primarily, the legal system, courts do. However, they always draw in expertise and considering that privacy experts don't agree on what a "privacy phone" should be, good luck defining that market when the market can't define itself. (Does it need secure boot or not? Hardened malloc? Tracker blocking? Sideloading or no sideloading? Allow background processes or not? Hardware Microphone disable switches or not? Some or all of the above? Hardware-based assertions for auditing? Built-in YubiKey? Completely open source firmware? Completely open source modem? Fuzzing required? No C, only Rust?)
But then, even if there was a standard for a "privacy-preserving phone," is that market large enough to legally matter? Currently, judging by how many people are using GrapheneOS... No. Again, Apple has a monopoly on smartphones with Lightning Ports, but I don't think anybody cares about the "Smartphones with Lightning Ports" market. And if you brought a lawsuit complaining about the Lightning Port monopoly, it would be dismissed immediately.
Would you say that PlayStation is a monopoly? Probably not - you know they are competing with Xbox and Nintendo. Apple makes the same argument and legally it has held up - they are competing with Android and Windows and Amazon. You don't have to like the competition from Android or Amazon, but legally, there's competition and that's all that matters. At least for right now.