They have a monopoly on what? Apps in the Apple App Store? I agree they shouldn’t be able to use their market dominance in the app marketplace space to stop other app marketplaces from competing with their App Store, but within their own ecosystem that is way too specific of a thing to apply anti-trust rules to. The reason the App Store is popular is because of the iron grip they keep on their apps. Telling them they can’t control their apps the way they want is like telling a chip maker they can’t use a certain architecture because it is too fast and other companies won’t be able to compete with them.

Specifically, because it harms consumers, it harms the industry (or industries in this case), and hurts innovation.

Rather, the question is, how can Apple control access to a device they have sold to customers by forcing all app deployments through their App Store? They can run the App Store quite whimsically if they allow side loading apps and other app repositories.

It isn’t illegal to side load another OS with another App Store onto your phone. But Apple is also well within their rights to design their phones to brick if they detect something they deem a security risk being loaded onto a device they sold. They tell you up front, before you buy it, what the device is designed for and what it isn’t. Xbox doesn’t let you run Word and won’t support it if you somehow figure out a way to. Is that not the same thing?

> why should the government get to tell Apple how to run their app store?

Do you simply not believe in anti-trust law then?

What if microsoft forced you to pay them a 30 percent cut, for installing other web browsers, or apps? You would be ok with that?

Isn’t this the case on the XBox? People seem to be fine with it.

Microsoft should absolutely be able to do that if they wanted and in fact do that when you buy something from their Windows store. But not allowing side loading of apps would be bad for business. Linux would see a huge gain in marketshare.

The point of Apple existing is to make people’s lives better. That’s the only reason any company exists. If Apple is behaving in a way that makes people’s lives worse, they should have to change. That’s why we live in a society.