But when that happened didn't Microsoft have something like 95%+ of the global desktop operating system market share? Whereas Apple has nowhere close to that in mobile market share and likely never will. They are not a monopoly in the same way Microsoft was a monopoly.

With Apple you have viable alternatives from Android handset manufacturers: alternatives that are suitable for the average person on the street.

With Microsoft this was not the case. When that case started Apple were basically dead in the water on the desktop... and then you had Linux, which was not suitable for the average user (yes, I'm sure we can all cherry pick a story about somebody's grandparent being perfectly happy with Linux back in the day but these anecdotes, whilst fun and interesting, do not add up to meaningful data).

The EU Commission and several other competition bodies are currently studying Apple's anticompetitive practices. The reason it has avoided their action until now is probably due to the technicality of the issue and its deep ramifications. Hopefully the numerous recent articles about the matter will help the regulators understand it and act on it.

Well, probably also that technically Microsoft had a monopoly in desktop operating systems (apparently 97% of desktop computers in 2000 according to an article I found), whereas Apple’s smartphone market share in Europe is just less than 30%.

It’s more subtle because it depends what you consider to be the market.

Windows was the dominant operating system of the PC platform. But the openness of the PC platform wasn’t a problem. On smartphone, you are bound by the hardware to keep the OS sold with it. So it could make sense to consider the « iPhone devices » market instead of the « smartphone » market (same for Android).

Perhaps they realize that opening up the browser on iOS would disproportionally benefit Google and nobody else.

Not just Google - Many thousands of developers would benefit from being able to create web applications that can run on desktop and mobile and are not handicapped on Apple devices.

I'd rather take the side of the end users. Don't forget developers are end users too. Developers benefit from an open ecosystem, not the locked down silo'd web that Chrome is pushing for.

What is the locked down silo'd web that Chrome is pushing for? Safari is pushing for a crippled web that requires developers to pay an Apple app tax to reach users.

You're talking about "developers reaching the users", but that's from the perspective of building websites and webapps. What about from the other side? What if you're a developer that wants to control your own computer & your interfaces to the web?

It used to be a lot easier 10 years ago, federated protocols were more common, websites were forced to be more accessible in a more fragmented browser marketshare. It wasn't until Chrome started doing forced auto-updates (and the other browsers followed) that really pushed to a monoculture and led to more locked down websites. Developers loved that it made their work easier, but there is a cost of freedom.

I don't understand. You can still control your own computer's interface to the web. You can install extensions to disable JavaScript functionality or even build your own browser to do so. The only frequently used web browsing platform that doesn't allow this is iOS, as far as I know.

>Back then [...] an enduser could just install another Operating System on the hardware if they didn't want to be forced to use Internet Explorer

That does not make much sense, coming from Microsoft. Users were never forced to use Internet Explorer on Windows* and could always install other browsers freely. No need to switch OSs.

*The only time Microsoft imposed the use of Internet Explorer, as far as I can remember, was back in Windows XP, when Windows Update came as a web application.

The issue that is so often missed is that it wasn't the fact that IE was bundled as the default or that it had the largest market share. Very simply, the issue was how that market share was attained. Microsoft threatend to withdraw OEMs Windows licenses if the OEM bundled a competing browser, thus levereaging their near desktop OS monopoly to dominate web browsers.

Exactly, the problem was the illegal tying.

> That does not make much sense, coming from Microsoft. Users were never forced to use Internet Explorer on Windows* and could always install other browsers freely. No need to switch OSs.

I think your parent's history is wrong, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't avoid using Internet Explorer if you were on Windows. You could also use other browsers, but so much crucial functionality passed through IE that you simply couldn't opt entirely out of it. (For example, it couldn't be uninstalled.) I think that, at least for a while, Explorer (the file browser) was basically IE pointed at the local filesystem.

The EU looks at the health of the market and there is plenty of competition and Apple only controls a small fraction of it. Windows on the other hand was installed on like >90% of computers.