At some point Microsoft was forced to include a browser choice program on installation and it had marginal effects on the IE user base. Likewise, despite the heavy shilling, Edge can barely get a foot in. Realistically all that changed is we now have to boot Edge or IE to get another browser again (from average user PoV).
> 18. Second, Microsoft unlawfully required PC manufacturers, as a condition of obtaining licenses for the Windows 95 operating system, to agree to license, preinstall, and distribute Internet Explorer on every Windows PC such manufacturers shipped. By virtue of the monopoly position Windows enjoys, it was a commercial necessity for OEMs to preinstall Windows 95 -- and, as a result of Microsoft's illegal tie-in, Internet Explorer -- on virtually all of the PCs they sold. Microsoft thereby unlawfully tied its Internet Explorer software to the Windows 95 version of its monopoly operating system and unlawfully leveraged its operating system monopoly to require PC manufacturers to license and distribute Internet Explorer on every PC those OEMs shipped with Windows.
Microsoft does make its own hardware. The Surface line of products are pretty amazing. They didn't break any OEM 3rd party market nor dictate anything. In fact, they have a "signature system" policy for their first party hardware that it won't be full of bloatware like 3rd party OEMs used to do.
Google has slowly been destroying its 3rd parties and 3rd parties playing in its ecosystem have been moving towards forking for a while which is why there is always the complaint of unsupported devices after a single cycle there. (and so many community roms/hacks/installers floating around to address this)
Tangent to this is that Safari isn't the dominant market browser in any space.
* Mobile worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide
* Desktop worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide
* Mobile US https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america
* Desktop US https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america
Really wish they hadn't gone and invented yet another kind of charge port.
Apple has OEM partners? :-)
Seriously, the lawsuit against Microsoft involved anti-competitive behavior, not anti-consumer behavior. In this case, other businesses have better legal protections than customers.
As noted in the complaint, there were several parts to it relevant to a browser ( https://www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-us-v-microsoft-corp ). The first three:
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16. First, Microsoft invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, test, and promote Internet Explorer, a product which it distributes without separate charge. As Paul Maritz, Microsoft's Group Vice President in charge of the Platforms Group, was quoted in the New York Times as telling industry executives: "We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they're selling, we're going to give away for free." As reported in the Financial Times, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates likewise warned Netscape (and other potential Microsoft challengers) in June 1996: "Our business model works even if all Internet software is free. . . . We are still selling operating systems. What does Netscape's business model look like? Not very good."
17. But Mr. Gates did not stop at free distribution. Rather, Microsoft purposefully set out to do whatever it took to make sure significant market participants distributed and used Internet Explorer instead of Netscape's browser -- including paying some customers to take IE and using its unique control over Windows to induce others to do so. For example, in seeking the support of Intuit, a significant application software developer, Mr. Gates was blunt, as he reported in a July 1996 internal e-mail:
I was quite frank with him [Scott Cook, CEO of Intuit] that if he had a favor we could do for him that would cost us something like $1M to do that in return for switching browsers in the next few months I would be open to doing that. (MS6 6007642).
18. Second, Microsoft unlawfully required PC manufacturers, as a condition of obtaining licenses for the Windows 95 operating system, to agree to license, preinstall, and distribute Internet Explorer on every Windows PC such manufacturers shipped. By virtue of the monopoly position Windows enjoys, it was a commercial necessity for OEMs to preinstall Windows 95 -- and, as a result of Microsoft's illegal tie-in, Internet Explorer -- on virtually all of the PCs they sold. Microsoft thereby unlawfully tied its Internet Explorer software to the Windows 95 version of its monopoly operating system and unlawfully leveraged its operating system monopoly to require PC manufacturers to license and distribute Internet Explorer on every PC those OEMs shipped with Windows.
19. Third, Microsoft intends now unlawfully to tie its Internet browser software to its new Windows 98 operating system, the successor to Windows 95. Microsoft has made clear that, unless restrained, it will continue to misuse its operating system monopoly to artificially exclude browser competition and deprive customers of a free choice between browsers.
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You can go through these complaints (and the other three - down to paragraph 32) and ask "is Apple doing these things?"
Is apple going out and trying to squash Chrome on windows machines (remember, Microsoft released IE for OS 6 or was it 7?). Is Apple trying to call up Amazon and have them replace Chrome with Safari on their Kindle devices?
The things that Microsoft got in trouble with for its anti-competitive practices with IE are completely separate and distinct from the things that people accuse Apple with for being anti-consumer.
Apple has gotten their wrist slapped for being anti-competitive with books in the past.
Half of DOJ's case about anti-competitive behavior was about the activities that Microsoft took to try to force Netscape out of places through business pressure. Two of the other items were about OEM and licensing, and one was about bundling the browser into the next version of Windows.
The time that Apple did do that was with book pricing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/justice-d...
Apple is not forcing its OEM partners to exclude 3rd party browsers.
If Microsoft made its own hardware and packaged IE with its version of the OS sold on its hardware - there wouldn't be an issue.
The big difference is that Apple doesn't license its software to 3rd parties.
On the other hand, if Google were to compel its OEM partners to include software, then Google would likely be facing various government bodies that have issue with this process and possibly facing fines.