It’s dead simple to switch from Apple to Android and vice versa. Or are you trying to say Android is such a significantly more difficult platform that Apple users are too stupid to figure out and thus locked into iOS? Otherwise your argument applies to Android as easily as it does to iOS.
Dead simple until you consider that you have to (a) buy a new phone (b) transfer all your passkeys (c) transfer all your apps (and find replacements for those that don't exist on both platforms) (d) transfer all your data/log in to all your accounts... etc.
It's anything but dead simple. (And I went from Android to Apple back in 2020 and back to Android in 2021. It sucked, both ways.)
Most people buy a new phone every few years as it is, app passwords are the same between platforms, and the average user only uses about a half dozen apps. No one is locked into iOS nor Android. We are talking about 2-3 hours of effort to switch, hardly a ‘anti-competitive’ burden. Get real.
> Most people buy a new phone every few years as it is
Yep, which is unlikely to coincide with the latest screwover from their platform of choice, giving them much less motivation to switch at that time. But you're right, the expense only prevents some people from switching.
> app passwords are the same between platforms
Until they're not. Heck, I've encountered apps that didn't support any way of transferring your progress across platforms, although the example I can think of (Clash of Clans, or maybe Clash Royale) fixed that many years ago. But there's still plenty of instances where I needed to add another login method to my account because some methods just weren't supported on the other platform.
Meanwhile if you keep using the same platform odds are you'll just be logged in because it will either be in iCloud or your Google account.
> the average user only uses about a half dozen apps
I doubt that very much. I guess maybe the average user is old people who still only use their phone for calling, texting, and maybe directions? Yeah you're right it doesn't affect them too much. Other than remembering to turn off iMessage if they switch away from Apple.
