I can buy a Nest Thermostat from any of thousands of websites and it would work just fine in my home. I can't even get a Steam Link app for free from anyone and have it work effortlessly on my iOS device. These two are not the same, no matter which side you are on.
There are more non-iOS phones out there than iOS phones. I think this is why Apple isn’t too concerned about “monopoly” talk right now. (No, a “monopoly” on Apple products is not an illegal thing.)
A company doesn't need a majority of the market to be prosecuted for anti-competitive behavior and likewise having a majority of the market does not mean your every move is illegally anti-competitive.
If prosecuted under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, existence of a monopoly is a precondition. Certainly there are non-Sherman charges that could be brought, but I'm not aware of anything that would be applicable in this instance?
To your first point, assuming Sherman is used, I believe US v Alcoa [1] is still the controlling case law. And you'd have a very hard time convincing a court that "smartphones made by Apple" constitute a product category over which it could have a 75%+ market share.
Or are there other laws under which action could be brought in this situation?
That’s just incorrect on the face of it. Linux and Mac have existed for as long as Windows, or longer. It’s pure opinion to say there were no competitors.
With monopoly cases, it's all about market share. In the late 90s, Windows had 95%+ of the market[0]. I believe (but may be mistaken) that the legal threshold often used is 75%. Apple isn't there, but Windows certainly was.
since when does market share determine what competitors there are? competitors are businesses competing against each other for the same market share. so your chart actually proves my statement since both linux and apple existed at this time.
You can install android apps or chrome extensions from any source, not just the Google-managed store.
This sounds minor, but its absolutely a major reason why the stores aren't monopolies. I find it startling how few people on HN remember the fact that stores have a right to decide what they want to sell and not. We don't live in communist Russia. Walmart doesn't have to sell Whole Foods-branded food, H&M doesn't have to sell Mossimo clothes, Amazon doesn't have to sell Nest thermostats, Apple doesn't have to sell Pixel devices in their stores, and Google doesn't have to sell Adblocking software.
In every single one of these cases, its because the companies managing the stores have a business interest against selling the items.
Apple's case is different in a significant way. When they block a product from their store, they establish that none of the users on their systems are able to get the item legally. However, they can still use the argument that iOS is only one platform among any mobile platforms, they don't have a massive marketshare, and they aren't taking any actions in the realm of mobile platform adoption which could be construed as hostile against competition.
Much like obstruction of justice, anticompetitive behavior is an intent that transforms behavior that would otherwise be perfectly legal into something that is not.
It is perfectly legal for Amazon to decide they don't want to carry Apple products in their store. If they decide they don't want to carry Apple products because they're releasing their own lines of phones and tablets, that may not be legal. Intent and context do matter.
You can also install ios apps by sideloading, it’s existed since at least ios9. Valve could release the binary and allow users to self install with just a drag and drop in itunes.
If you're willing not only to download sideload apps but also to modify your device so you can have root access, then it works. So not really different from Apple.
You don't need to get root on an android device to sideload apps, unless the app has specific functionality that requires root. You don't need to break anything about the system or your warranty. Its just a toggle in the settings menu.
This is absolutely not the case. I can install any app-store app I'd like, and it can install apps on my phone. I can even download raw apk file and install them myself.
Any features that require root would still require root if installed from the Play Store. That is not relevant to the argument that you can always install things blocked from the Play Store by getting them from other sources.
Moreover, the ad blocking features you get without root are a strict superset of the features that are possible at all on iOS.
> It is relevant, because if it were a free platform you'd be able to do this kind of thing without circumventing the system software.
You can do it without "circumventing the system software." Unlocking the system partition is a supported operation. Then just install a program that lets you run other programs as uid 0. This is not possible for normal apps to do because running as uid 0 means you are no longer subject to the permissions system.
Also, it's irrelevant because the whole point is that Google can't block the user from running whatever apps they like by blocking the app from the Play Store. Requiring root access is orthogonal to Play Store availability.
Their security model is different. They are multiuser OSes protecting users against each other, while Android started as a single user OS (despite what goes on with uids underneath) protecting users from themselves.
Users running their own apps as uid 0 goes directly against the security model. Nothing stops them from changing or completely discarding the security model on their own devices, but once again, that is completely orthogonal to blocking apps on the Play Store.
It's not completely orthogonal, though. Both things are, in practice, means by which Google can control what kind of apps most users will be exposed to and will install.
But if you've paid for Amazon Prime then Amazon has become a platform similar your iPhone.
Just like you can buy a cheap secondary phone for Steam Link, you can join another company's "free shipping membership program" to buy your Nest (or just pay shipping or get it locally, like you said).
Regardless, I think the distinction is less clear than you make out.
Is that a serious suggestion to buy a second phone, or is it supposed to be absurd?
How does having prime lock you into Amazon, at all? You're not disallowed to shop elsewhere after signing up for Prime. You don't even have to sign up for someone else's "free shipping membership program" to buy your Nest.
Not it wasn't meant to be absurd. I grew up carrying single-function devices, so maybe don't feel that one device should automatically be able to do every thing its electronics could support.
To be clear, I think Apple is shortsighted in this decision and the Steam Link app isn't actually very competitive with native games. But I'm not its target audience either, even though I have a decent library of Steam games (50+).
My guess is that this move is not really about Steam Link but about the next company to come along with something like "play Android games on your iPhone" functionality.
The argument on both sides is around financial burden:
* Pay more for delivery because not using Amazon Prime
* Pay more to buy an Android phone
When making this argument it's obvious that buying a new phone is much more expensive than Amazon Prime but this raises an interesting question; what is the financial threshold at which point one has to be considered a monopoly?
Most people also don't pay for a subscription service that gives you cheaper prices. If you look specifically at Prime subscribers, I bet you'd find that they make efforts to do all their shopping through Amazon where possible.
Given that Apple - as a private company - is the owner of iOS, no one can blame them for what they wish to include/exclude from their ecosystem. A mistake many people make these days is they think just because some services are so prevalent and worldwide, they ought to be under control of the law and government. The same thing happens when people complain about Google/Amazon/Facebook for their policies. They're private companies! If you don't like them, fine, quit using their services, simple as that.
The day we give a person the right to sue a private company over their policies, we will essentially kill the free market.
Google was fined for $2 billions in Europe for promoting their own services in search results. You could argue that Google search is theirs and they can do whatever they want with it, but luckily since they are a big player (close to being the only one in search) there are antitrust laws that prevent that.
Apple is in a similar positon. A lot customers depend on iOS devices and I am not sure Apple should be allowed to exclude competitors from the App Store at its discretion.
In the last century, the deciding factor about a company's freedom to do whatever it wants has always been strongly influenced by national security concerns and by monopolistic concerns.
The degree to which iOS is or isn't a "monopoly" has a lot to do with how much freedom Apple has to make decisions like this.
The same arguments were made back during the Microsoft anti-trust era.
The fact is once a company reaches a certain size different rules do apply.
Here Apple is definitely abusing their control over the ecosystem to lock out a competitor. The question is is this control great enough to prevent anyone from truly competing with Apple, which is what anti-trust law is designed to protect against.
Hopefully we are still free to discuss what effects a company's perfectly legal choices could have on us as a society and as an industry? Or is that also now verboten in the name of fairness to the free market?
> Given that Apple - as a private company - is the owner of iOS, no one can blame them for what they wish to include/exclude from their ecosystem.
Apple may own their property, but iOS-device owners own their devices, and Apple have no right to prevent them from running the software they wish to run on the devices they own.
Specifically it states: " The software (including Boot ROM code, embedded software and third party software), documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data that came with your iOS Device (“Original iOS Software”), as may be updated or replaced by feature enhancements, software updates or system restore software provided by Apple (“iOS Software Updates”), whether in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (the Original iOS Software and iOS Software Updates are collectively referred to as the “iOS Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and its licensors retain ownership of the iOS Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you."
If a person has agreed to these terms, I don't see how they can complain about Apple's policies in the future. The same software that isn't owned by the person, but is Apple's, now refuses to run Steam Link. The person who agreed to such terms had it coming, you can't blame Apple for that.
Would you agree to those terms if you had a realistic alternative?
Is this contract written in a way that provides equitable consideration to the user for the provisions that solely benefit Apple?
Doesn't seem like it.
The ability of Apple to include those take-it-or-leave-it terms suggests a dominant market position (strong market power) held by Apple, regardless of other mobile device platforms.
The license is a "Contract of Adhesion" "where the terms and conditions of the contract are set by one of the parties, and the other party has little or no ability to negotiate more favorable terms and is thus placed in a "take it or leave it" position.
While these types of contracts are not illegal per se, there exists a very real possibility for unconscionability." (Wikipedia)
with unconscionability being "a doctrine in contract law that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Typically, an unconscionable contract is held to be unenforceable because no reasonable or informed person would otherwise agree to it. The perpetrator of the conduct is not allowed to benefit, because the consideration offered is lacking, or is so obviously inadequate, that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract."
> Would you agree to those terms if you had a realistic alternative?
What do you mean? If one doesn't want to agree with such terms, there are quite many android alternatives, some of which even better than iPhone/iPad in certain aspects.
Of course, it all may well depend on whether such terms are reasonable and legal. There are plenty of consumer protection laws that nullify all sorts of 'agreed' terms.
