Even if we rewrite the dictionary and legal texts, Apple would be part of a duopoly, not a monopoly. If you try to redefine monopoly to mean that Apple has a monopoly over their own platform, then you better start lawyering up because essentially every company in America has a monopoly.
I think people want Apple to be classified as a monopoly because they see their behavior as unfair. But they aren't a monopoly and your recourse as a free American citizen is to just not buy Apple products. The fact that you are able to buy from a competitor with zero personal harm is absolute indication that Apple is not a monopoly.
If Apple has pricing power because people don't move to competitors, they are a monopoly in the eyes of the law no matter how many players are in the same commonly-described market segment and what their sizes are.
> If you try to redefine monopoly to mean that Apple has a monopoly over their own platform
If that platform is sufficiently sticky that pricing changes don't induce people to switch to competitors, that's exactly what the law already does, no redefinition needed.
> then you better start lawyering up because essentially every company in America has a monopoly.
No, most don't, though they tend to seek them (what do you think a ”moat” is?)
I'm not taking sides, or claiming I'm an expert on economics, but isn't the question with monopolies always "what is the market, and what are the competitors"? If you accuse someone of being a monopoly, they will always define their market as widely as possible, but if you are an antitrust lawyer trying to win a case against them you will define it as narrowly as possible. There's always a sufficiently wide or narrow definition for either side to win. And every business has some pricing power and some friction for their customers. Everyone talks about investing in companies that have a "moat" which seems to be understood as something more than many companies have, but less than a monopoly.
Pricing power is a key way in which that question is answered: if an actor doesn't have it, the people to whom business goes when they raise prices are the rest of the market they are in. If they do have it, there are no actual competitors.
The fact that Apple can charge a premium despite being a minority player, and despite their marketshare shrinking, is evidence of their excellent marketing, not a monopoly.
To be a monopoly you must either have a dominant position in the market or your behavior must be such that you are attempting to gain a dominant position in the market. Or you can just make shit up because you don't like Apple.
You are wrong in two respects.
First, I am not taking a position o whether Apple meets the test for monopoly.
Second, the test is pricing power (the ability to raise prices without defection to competitors) not “high prices”. This is more important than how many players might be in any popular description of the market, because it is test of whether those other players are in fact competing with the player in question, or whether they are in objectively separate markets even if the usual popular description is of a single market.
> Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true
Correct, wanting “are there more players in what is typically described in the press as the market in which the actor is participating” to be the main legal test for monopoly instead of pricing power does not make it so.
What monopoly? Apple controls maybe 8% of the desktop/notebook market and ~13% of the smartphone market. They don't even come close to qualifying as a monopoly.