Apple engaged in a deal with its chip supplier to restrict downstream competition[0] which was all the suppliers fault of course.

Apple had illegal tax arrangements in the Republic of Ireland[1], which was Irelands fault of course.

Apple may just have too much clout in the music biz[2]. This one is on them

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-24/qualcomm-...

[1]http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm

[2]http://www.cityam.com/280169/eu-warns-apples-bid-shazam-coul...

I don't see how any of this is even tangentially related to the article or what I wrote. Nice anecdotes though?

You seemed to be arguing that Apple were in no position to be a monopoly. I was showing that they have had the market position to have been included in some monopoly investigations already, and in that other part of the article have engaged in tax avoidance where they made an illegal sweetheart agreement with a nation state. I am suggesting that they have rather more dominance than you were making out.

Now a potential merger is being investigated by competition authorities which supports the article and directly contradicts your comment. Nice brush of though?

Those aren't anecdotes. What you posted are anecdotes.

My anecdotes largely match your anecdotes though :)

what was that about throwing stones and glass houses?

You’ve got the causality pretty far out of whack on Qualcomm -> Apple, it seems to me.

Apple has been trying to escape from Qualcomm’s non-FRAND licensing terms for a long time, so pointing to a deal Apple didn’t want and saying that was Apple’s doing seems pretty far fetched.

It's difficult to say, Apple did benefit from billions of dollars in rebates. However it is also true that years latter Apple did launch legal action to get out of the deal.

Perhaps it benefited in the beginning, but by 2016 felt it had enough market clout to get a better deal with Intel?

> You’ve got the causality pretty far out of whack on Qualcomm -> Apple, it seems to me.

I did say that the regulator found it was Qualcomm that were legally at fault. I don't think I was that far out of whack? Apple did however sign up to and benefit from the deal. The wronged parties were other chip manufacturers. I still think that leaves a moral question hanging over Apple

I interpreted your “which was the supplier’s fault, of course” as sarcasm, from using the same phrase for Ireland. Poe’s law strikes! If in fact you weren’t being sarcastic, then I apologize.

It’s true that Apple benefitted cost-wise, but note that this deal was generally available (in direction, if not magnitude) to most of Qualcomm’s customers, so I was more making the point that Apple wasn’t particularly special in taking the best deal on offer; they’re more unusual in fighting against Qualcomm.

No I apologise, I think I was being at least half sarcastic.

I fully recognize that Apple didn't legally do anything wrong by taking Qualcomm up on a deal which was clearly in breach of competition rules for Qualcomm to offer.

However it could only be market abuse due to Apple's size and dominance in the phone/tablet field, and it is also true to say that Apple would have known that the deal they were being offered was unlawful. If they had offered this deal to my kickstarter single board computer project it would have been insignificant. Apple do not have clean hands in this.

>they’re more unusual in fighting against Qualcomm.

Yes, but didn't this begin in an argument over the size of the rebate they were due? I may be wrong in supposing it was a primary factor. Either way this is after they benefited for some years.

I feel like we are agreeing, but emphasizing different areas?

There are a lot of cases regarding Qualcomm's licensing scheme, but the 'fighting qualcomm' came first.

In 2015, the Korean FTC launched an antitrust suit against Qualcomm & Apple testified in it.

Qualcomm said that Apple mislead & withheld information from the KFTC. They've also stated that this breeches the terms of their licensing agreement, and Qualcomm hasn't given Apple any rebates since.

Apple disagrees, and in January 2016, they sued Qualcomm over it. Put simply, their argument was that they were owed all the withheld rebates, because they hadn't broken Qualcomm's terms. The anti-trust implications of the license were mentioned, but weren't really the point.

The broader anti-trust suit in the US was brought by the FTC just a couple of days prior, so a lot of news blended the two together. Apple, provided information in the FTC's case, and Qualcomm has sued Apple over that too.

> Apple doesn't have the highest market share in any category

False. They do still have the largest market share in tablets and just lost first place in phones to Samsung.

> Out of these four the only one I really use daily is Google, followed by Amazon.

> Facebook is pretty much a dead man walking in my social circles.

Your whole post is anecdotal and further proves you're writing from your bubble's POV.

> Actually there are plenty of companies who are both larger and wield considerably more power/influence [than Apple].

Apple has had the greatest market capitalization of any publicly traded company for the past five years (with a few short exceptional periods yielding to Exxon Mobil or Alphabet).

Don't forget instagram.

> I am not dominated by my screwdriver just because I use it daily.

That's because a third party cannot pay money to bump you and your demographic on the heads with the screwdriver.

Hm... it's a bit worse than that because the third party is showing you ads on the screwdriver, and your demographic has no idea how a screwdriver actually works in the first place. (In fact even the people at Free Screwdriver Foundation can only speculate how an ad-based screwdriver network with billions of users works in practice.)

Given such a tool, what is the likelihood that your demographic is screwing something you chose vs. screwing something the third party chose? Keep in mind the third party isn't acting arbitrarily but instead based on a rich set of data about your pre-existing predilections, frustrations, party affiliation, geographical location, plus your favorite materials to screw together.