> How does Apple have a monopoly?

They have monopoly power and control over app developers' access to iPhone users.

If supermarkets offered a loyalty card program that made it physically impossible for you to shop at another supermarket, then this would be a monopoly/anti-trust issue too, even if no supermarket had a majority share of the market.

The usual response of Apple fans is "You can just buy a second phone", but asking app developers to give away free Android phones to their iPhone-using potential customers is not really a viable competitive strategy.

That example only works if you were denied using the actual loyalty card for shopping at another market, which is actually the case? Nothing about the Apple ecosystem means you can't buy an Android and continue using it

As expected, this is the "Just buy an extra phone, 4Head" suggestion that we always hear. (I'm assuming users would still want to access the apps and media they bought on their iPhone).

If switching from an iPhone to an Android device required the user to jump through literal hoops, on camera, Apple fans would probably complain about governments forbidding hoop-jumping clauses in EULAs.

I wasn't saying "Just buy an extra phone, 4Head" - I was pointing out how your analogy was actually the equivalent of "Just buy an extra phone, 4Head", because loyalty cards can't be taken and used at unaffiliated stores, and yet people are more than welcome to open multiple loyalty accounts, one with each store.

I mean I also can't use the app I bought for my iPhone on my Windows desktop.... why would I expect two separate operating systems to interoperate?

I'm not suggesting that the government should require all OSes to provide identical APIs for apps to run on them, for example, as obviously that sort of "interoperability" would place an unreasonable burden on companies.

However, there are anti-competitive policies of Apple which burden not just app developers and users but Apple themselves, and it's really hard to justify their existence other than "monopolies are very profitable".

https://www.reddit.com/r/swift/comments/3d8koa/apple_rejecte...

Monopoly power is not the same as a literal monopoly. The FTC has a pretty good definition of it:

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...