Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1

Re:Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1 by mattmaroon on Monday May 03, 2010 @11:45AM (#1314990)

Wrong and wronger. Each of the console gaming companies you mentioned has more market share in consoles than Apple has in smart phones (and Apple's share of mobile phones as a whole is trivial). While the iPhone might garner 95% of Hacker News entries, it's only selling about 15% of smart phones. (That's a lot, especially at the markup Apple gets off of it, but it's less than any of the console makers has.)

Regardless, one does not need a monopoly to engage in anti-competitive actions and for them to be illegal.

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Re:Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1 by mkramlich on Monday May 03, 2010 @06:59PM (#1316370)

I think the distinction that is confusing several people is that between the market for cellphones and the market for applications which run on high-end cellphones/mobiledevices. Using some of the numbers thrown around, it's the difference between saying Apple has only a 15% share of the cellphone market, vs., 99% share of the paid smartphone applications market. It's that latter market that Apple is clearly the dominant player in, and their change to the 3.3.1 could, by a reasonable person, by seen as a move to stifle development on competitive platforms. I think this is the basis for a potential investigation.

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