Because network and chicken / egg effect obviously ?
Because an open platform would need first to convince hundred millions of developper to port their App on their platform just to exist.
And the cost does not justify the benefits of that "an open platform" brings.
Apple and Google knows that very well and abuse of it.
Just as a side note I would add: There were a time where Internet explorer was a de-facto (shitty) Monopoly everywhere with terrible consequences.
Technological Freedom and the ability to have the choice brought us Firefox. It tools 10 years of competition to get there.
And The result was a better web for everybody.
Apple with its App store makes a Firefox style scenario impossible: they do decide of the life and death of everything on their platform. Including, ironically, the Web browser.
You're right, it couldn't possibly be that Apple has a superior product (iPhone/iOS) compared to Android's fragmented, poorly supported, borderline bad implementations.
The original question was "why is Apple so dominant?" and the response was basically "they have a lot of network effects helping them" which, while true, ignores the possibility that they are so dominant because they have great products that people want to use and will pay a large premium to use.
Because an open platform would need first to convince hundred millions of developper to port their App on their platform just to exist.
And the cost does not justify the benefits of that "an open platform" brings.
Apple and Google knows that very well and abuse of it.
Just as a side note I would add: There were a time where Internet explorer was a de-facto (shitty) Monopoly everywhere with terrible consequences.
Technological Freedom and the ability to have the choice brought us Firefox. It tools 10 years of competition to get there.
And The result was a better web for everybody.
Apple with its App store makes a Firefox style scenario impossible: they do decide of the life and death of everything on their platform. Including, ironically, the Web browser.