You are literally saying that you agree that Apple has very serious market power, and has the ability to force the rest of the market, to do what it wants, using its illegal, anticompetitive behavior.
Go ahead and say that you want this. But you are just straight up admitting that Apple has anti-trust level market power, and is using illegal anti-competitive behavior.
Therefore, they would lose the lawsuit, under your argument.
People haven't thought it through at all. If they've even considered this aspect of it, I'd be surprised.
iPhone popularity is due to a mix of very good engineering, presentation, marketing and network effects.
Smartphones are also very, very new for people. Give them time and they'll rebel against a single point of control sooner or later.
It's the reason why I don't even really give a toss: there's nothing on iOS that you can't get on Android.
Not in the US market where iPhones have the great majority and where this trial is taking place.
There are also definitely iOS exclusives.
Who knows. Gaming consoles have had a decent run, but of course that may not be that good a precedent as they've not evolved into general-purpose computing devices to the same degree that phones have...
Third party developers want to get their apps onto the iPhone, because the platform has a lot of users, and there's a lot of money to be made. However, they will be forced to play by Apple's rules, which (according to the argument) is good for the customer, as the custodian of the platform has a vested interest in keeping them happy.
Now, if 3rd party stores were allowed, Apple's bargaining power which allowed them to force 3rd parties to respect the user's interest would go away, allowing developers to deliver a worse (eg privacy-violating) product.
Users who do not like this deal are free to go with an Android device instead of an iPhone. The popularity of the latter might suggest that quite a few people are reasonably happy with the status quo.