What I think it may be different in Apple's case is that they don't usually build apps that compete with apps from other developers like Microsoft did.

They sometimes do, though, with Maps for example.

... and Maps is precisely one of the apps that use private APIs.

the tech industry likes to change definitions to fit their viewpoints.

On the other hand, it could be used as evidence of part of a larger anti-trust case, but given that Android devices are cheaper, perform just as well, and have a strong ecosystem, that's going to be hard to pull off.

When deciding if a monopoly exists, the relevant threshold is whether the customer had other reasonable options at the time of entering the contract, and in the smartphone world they unequivocally did have other options.

Does Honda have a "local monopoly" on sedans because Civic drivers don't usually switch to a Kia Forte overnight?

So to get back to Apple: They don't have a monopoly on smartphones, they have a monopoly on iOS app stores.

Now, a serious API, like say only Apple getting use of the accelerometer, that would be something. This is not the case here.

But again, expecting all APIs to be public from day one is idiotic. APIs should only be made public if they are stable and ready to be supported for the future.

What Apple can do and what it should do are not necessarily the same things. While it can establish privileged APIs, it should not. While it can attempt to support outside developers as a hardware company while also competing with them as a software company, it should not.

If it is easily demonstrated for this particular API, it may be present and less obvious elsewhere, including a serious API. The only way to know for sure is to inspect the code.

[1] https://www.cocoacontrols.com/controls/wypopovercontroller

[2] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cookapp/id771313730?mt=8&uo=...

The fact remains that there are plenty of documented examples of Apple tossing apps from its App Store for reasons that amount to little more than corporate whim or gatekeeper prerogative, or for no adequately explained reasons at all.

Should Apple ever decide that its popover API is ready for prime time, it could yank all apps that do not use it and demand that the Apple popover be used instead. I seem to recall something similar happening with third-party apps that improved upon the native camera API, but my memory may be suspect.

Which is totally unrelated to the discussion about the private API, and if you can replicate a widget provided in one. Which you can.

As for myself, the terms for Apple's developer program and its App Store alone are enough for me to prefer to develop in HTML5+javascript or in Android-flavored Java over Objective C for iOS. When you have only one route between you and your money, and one person standing on it, you're going to have issues eventually.

It isn't just true for Apple. When PayPal locks your account, you don't want that to bring your business to a screaming halt, so you open up alternate payment processors, like Stripe, Google, Amazon, Rixty, etc. But unlike that competitive market, there is no alternative to Apple's App Store available to non-jailbroken devices. That is a chokepoint that gives the one holding it dangerous amounts of power over you. Any solo coder or dev shop that gets their revenue exclusively from Apple's ecosystem has a banhammer of Damocles hanging over them at all times. They can't afford to take any risks like that, so they have to dance to Apple's tune, even when there is no strict obligation to do so.

The extra revenue from Apple's customers might be worth it to them. I'd rather have more freedom of choice.

No, it's not. From list views to buttons to menubars and keyboards, almost all iOS widgets (private to Apple or usually public) have alternative third party implementations. Nobody is going after them.

You are actually supposed and encouraged to create your own versions of widgets - Cocoa is especially good for that, and there are even instructions in the Apple Developer Network for how to customize views and such.

Doing their own popup widget wont get them into trouble, period.

It's called Windows "DirectUser" UI and it's in violation of the antitrust settlement.

sources:

* http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/02/10/52952...

* http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsdesktop/en-US...

  Internet Explorer's use of DUSER.DLL is only temporary. 
  The final version of Internet Explorer will not use it.
  -- Raymond Chen [author of "The Old New Thing"]

It's not useful to focus only on pure monopoly. From an economics perspective, there are plenty of other market structures which can be damaging for consumers.

You can argue until you're blue in the face that the FTC should look at other things, as well, but I'm not sure you'll get very far.

A much narrower range of anti-competitive practices are illegal when you are not a monopoly.

They may not have a monopoly on smartphones (they wished they did, and maybe they even think they deserve one), but that's not for lack of trying and as far as systems software on hardware supplied by Apple goes they do. You can't buy an iPhone without iOs and nobody makes an alternative.

Anti-trust law does not require a monopoly per-se, 'market power' is a well established concept and within the iPhone hardware segment Apple has 100% market power when it comes to systems software, on top of that they control (through their app store) 100% of all software that gets installed on those devices.

So if an apple supplied app out-competes a 3rd party supplied app by using api's only known to apple then that might lead to trouble. I have no illusion that that would be an extremely hard case to fight/win, especially given the fact that Apple is the largest company and has a nearly unlimited budget when it comes to hiring lawyers.

The flip side is that you can always define any supplier as a monopoly too. Apple have a monopoly on the supply of IOS and devices running IOS. Semantic definitions of monopoly aren't terribly useful. Budweiser have a monopoly on bud light. Budweiser probably can't use their market power to make miller taste worse than it does.

I didn't much care for Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, didn't care for the stories from the grey-beard's about IBM's before that. Maybe you've heard of standard oil. I don't care for apple's anti-competitive behavior either. Microsoft and IBM always had plenty of people who defended them too. I didn't need to give Microsoft 30% (is it?) of my sales revenue to sell software that is run by my customer on a microsoft operating system. I wonder if the general reaction would have been much different if microsoft had tried charging a significant percentage of sales revenue for all software vendors selling software that ran on windows in late 90s and early 00s

I remember being taught about YKK, a monopoly producer of zips, they kept their monopoly by producing good quality cheap zips. The profit made was enough that they could stay in business but not enough that it was worth other companies expending capital to get into the market.

Monopoly is one state of the market on a spectrum in a capitalist economy, it is neither good or bad it just is.

I don't know what your comment about "anti-trust law being about more than monopolies" is supposed to mean. It says nothing, and furthermore says nothing with an authority to which you are not entitled, being not an antitrust law expert. So your unsupported and unreasonable claims should be discounted accordingly.

But have a read on the various pages written by experts and come up with arguments against what I said instead of just trying to attack my credibility.

Whether or not I'm a subject expert or not has no bearing on that. I suspect that the answer is 'probably not', but I have seen weirder lawsuits being won. The bar in anti-trust cases is very high but there are multiple standards of proof and multiple instances of potentially anti-competitive behaviour.

Lets say there was a device that allowed you to pay tolls from your car in bitcoin. GM including a version of that in their cars would not dominate the market. It would diminish it, but not devastate. But lets say GM sold 80% of the cars in the world. Even then, including the device wouldn't be a violation of anti-trust.

Through the early 90s, MS did this often, Media Players, Disk Compression, Defrag, the list goes on and on.

But, if GM had 95% of the car market, and included a device that only paid in fiat currency, and it was 'artificially' tied into the ignition computer, so removing it made the cars useless. Then had the device subtly interfere with any alternate device. Finally, there was evidence, (emails from CEOs, VPS) that GM did this with the sole purpose of preventing BitCoin as a currency. Then you'll understand the scope of M$'s efforts in the browser wars, and what it took to finally get them at antitrust.

Yes, somebody does "make an alternative". There are hundreds of smartphones which are, at base specs, little different from an iPhone and run a variety of viable competing operating systems.

A monopoly occurs when nobody else can compete via resources the monopoly company doesn't ever own, either because the monopoly buys out every option (usually at a loss) for the sole purpose of denying access, or by conspiring to otherwise block fair competition. MS was in violation because (to at least a significant degree) they made everyone buy Windows (or, in a somewhat misguided case, mediaplayer), even if the hardware manufacturer was deliberately not installing Windows on a machine which the customer did not want Windows on; MS was interfering in a transaction they had no right to. Apple, on the other hand, makes the hardware and OS, and has every right to not sell one without the other - and if you don't want one or the other, there are plenty of fairly competing alternatives.

Tying software to hardware is not some magic immunity to antitrust. If you have a monopoly on either of them then the tying itself is illegal! If Microsoft did the same thing in the 90s all it would have done for them is to have Dell and HP filing complaints with the FTC alongside Sun and Netscape.

In fact, my entire household uses Android phones, as do all my family and with the exception of three individuals (2 Apple, 1 Windows), all my friends.

What you're proposing could easily be said about any supply of any good or service owned by anybody or any company. If each company's product distribution constitutes a monopoly of "Product X Market", then "monopoly" has been redefined.

I'm not arguing that what Apple has done in the mobile space is good, or even ethical or appropriate. I'm simply arguing that they do not own a monopoly, in any sense of the word that is reasonable in this context.

Let me see if I can explain why that's wrong.

> What you're proposing could easily be said about any supply of any good or service owned by anybody or any company. If each company's product distribution constitutes a monopoly of "Product X Market", then "monopoly" has been redefined.

Technically a trademark is a monopoly, albeit a legally granted one. But that's not what I'm talking about.

For example, Exxon 87 unleaded gasoline is completely fungible with BP 87 unleaded gasoline. They're for all practical purposes the same product, so they're in the same market even though they're different brands. An iPhone is less fungible with, say, a Samsung phone. They're still close enough substitutes to be plausibly considered the same market (although, for example, in the Microsoft case Windows and MacOS were found not to be in the same market). But that's still not the market I'm talking about. I'm talking about distribution of apps for these devices.

Let's start with a preliminary issue. Are iPhone apps in the same market as Android apps? Can they be used as substitutes for one another? The answer is clearly no. You can't run an Android app on an iPhone. This is substantially why Windows and MacOS were found not to be in the same market, but again that's not the market I'm interested in here. The point is that iOS apps and Android apps are not substitutes. And that doesn't even necessarily separate the markets for the devices -- because even though Angry Birds for iOS is a different product sold to different customers than Angry Birds for Android, the fact that the quantity and quality of apps available for each platform is comparable means that the platforms themselves are still reasonable substitutes for one another. But you can imagine how that could change if app developers stopped developing for one platform or the other, which reinforces the point.

So back to the apps. Is there competition for the production of iOS apps? Of course there is. There are thousands of developers; that's not at issue. But distribution is different than production. General Electric is not Walmart. Is there competition for distribution? No. No one is allowed to distribute iOS apps but Apple. There are no substitutes, Apple has a distribution monopoly in that market.

That is not how most "brands" work. You don't have to buy cars through Exxon. You don't have to buy gasoline through Ford. You don't even have to buy Android apps through Google Play. Apple is doing something unusual which results in the monopoly.

This is different from your toilet because other toilets are fungible with yours. You can't use an Android app store on an iPhone, they're not fungible.

This would not be the case if there were competing app stores for iOS and competing (or modifiable) operating systems for Apple hardware. That is why it hasn't been relevant in most other markets. You don't have to buy all your water from Delta after installing one of their faucets and you didn't have to buy all your music from Sony after buying a Walkman. Apple wanted to change the rules, that changes the scope of the market.

But it's not reasonable. A major selling point of iOS devices is that it's a walled garden. You knew that (or had a chance to learn it) when you bought your iOS device and you had a reasonable alternative (Android) without this limitation.

You want to have your cake and eat it too. That's all well, but the fact that you can't doesn't make Apple a monopoly.

You're the one trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want a walled garden, which is a monopoly, and then want to claim it isn't one.

A monopoly means that there's no choice for the whole product category. Back in the bad old days, if you wanted a home computer, then you were buying a Microsoft operating system whether you wanted to or not. That's what a monopoly looks like. (Yes, there were a couple of other niche players out there, like Apple. They didn't have any significant portion of the market, though. You can argue that they matter, but if so, then you're arguing that Microsoft didn't have an OS monopoly because of these competitors, which kind of reinforces my point.)

I believe the practice of requiring products to be purchased together is called "tying" and it's also problematic, but a different concept from a monopoly.

> People who already own Apple iOS products can easily obtain apps from companies that aren't Apple. They just have to buy an Android device first.

The problem with claiming that Android apps are competition for iOS apps is that to get competition for a $1 app you have to replace a $500 device. That isn't reasonable. It's like claiming Google Fiber is competition for Comcast because you can move to Kansas.

If you had to move every time you signed up for any broadband service, even the first one you ever sign up for, then that might be a comparable analogy.

Nintendo controls the availability of games for my Wii, and I'd have to spend a chunk of money to switch to another gaming platform, but that doesn't make them a monopoly either.

While I think that $500 doesn't break my point, I'd still also like to point out that it's wildly inflated. If you own an iOS device and want to run Android apps, the cost of entry is more like $30-50, even if you don't consider used hardware. Even coming the other way, prices start at $229.

You paid $500 for a device that can browse the internet, make phone calls from the back of a moving car, give you directions from anywhere to anywhere, record video, etc. You don't see how having to replace that entire device in order to buy a $1 app is unreasonable?

> If you had to move every time you signed up for any broadband service, even the first one you ever sign up for, then that might be a comparable analogy.

1) Where Comcast is the only provider in your area, you do. 2) In areas where Comcast has actual competitors, that would imply that Comcast is less of a monopoly than Apple. I don't think that's what you were going for.

> Nintendo controls the availability of games for my Wii, and I'd have to spend a chunk of money to switch to another gaming platform, but that doesn't make them a monopoly either.

Sure it does. It's exactly the same thing. Although Apple does have a higher barrier to switching, because cost of phone:cost of app is a much bigger ratio than cost of console:cost of game.

> While I think that $500 doesn't break my point, I'd still also like to point out that it's wildly inflated. If you own an iOS device and want to run Android apps, the cost of entry is more like $30-50, even if you don't consider used hardware. Even coming the other way, prices start at $229.

The $500 isn't the cost of the Android device, it's the cost of the iPhone you canceled the service on. Unless you want to say you're going to keep the iPhone too, in which case you're going to have to add in the recurring cost of a second cellular plan. And the market value of the huge inconvenience of having half your stuff on each of two devices.

Further, why do cellular services factor into any of this? Both iOS and Android devices run apps fine without cellular service. In fact, lots of them don't even have the ability to use cellular service.

If you're insisting on only examining the scenario where you own an iPhone and a long-term cellular contract, then you can still switch to Android for $30-50 through the simple expedient of buying an unlocked Android phone, taking the SIM out of your iPhone, and placing it in the Android phone.

Exchanging $500 for an iPhone was a sunk cost. You now have an iPhone with an expected future value to you of at least $500 (or why did you pay that much for it?). Using an Android phone instead of the iPhone you already have prevents you from extracting that expected future value from the iPhone. The more you use the Android phone instead, the less value you can extract from the iPhone. It's effectively a $500 opportunity cost.

> Further, why do cellular services factor into any of this? Both iOS and Android devices run apps fine without cellular service. In fact, lots of them don't even have the ability to use cellular service.

If cellular service is so unimportant then why does everybody pay so much for it?

> If you're insisting on only examining the scenario where you own an iPhone and a long-term cellular contract, then you can still switch to Android for $30-50 through the simple expedient of buying an unlocked Android phone, taking the SIM out of your iPhone, and placing it in the Android phone.

Your efforts to reduce the switching cost are doing nothing but incurring more switching costs. A $30 Android phone is not comparable to a $500 iPhone. It will have a slower CPU, less memory, less storage, a lower resolution screen, etc. It's liable to be running an old version of Android that doesn't support newer apps, and any apps it does run will run more slowly and otherwise not work as well as they would on the newer iPhone (or newer Android device). These are all costs -- costs the market values at hundreds of dollars or the price disparity wouldn't exist. Meanwhile even $30 is a significant price to pay against a market for $1 apps.

And sharing a SIM card is an enormous pain in the ass. If you have an iPhone, other iPhones remember that and route text messages to iMessage. Your Android phone won't receive them when it has the SIM card. Any app you use on either device which is dependent on receiving events from the network won't work outside of WiFi whenever you put the SIM card in the other device, and every time you go to a new place you get to type the WiFi password twice. "Is an enormous pain in the ass" is a significant switching cost.

Which is before we even get to all the other costs of switching platforms, like trying to move your data, which is only difficult when it isn't impossible.

Microsoft's Anti-trust suite was because of its web browser's dominance, IE was during the anti-trust suite upwards of 95% of all browsers on the Internet, this was because of bundling and defaults.

While other OS's may not execute on Apple's own hardware, other hardware exists (other smart phones) that directly compete with Apple. And by compete I mean neither Apple nor Andriod nor WindowsPhone 'owns' >90% of the mobile market.

This is how Sun didn't get involved in trust litigation over the fact that Solaris was the only OS that ran on Sun SPARC hardware, because its hardware was work station hardware. Which had to compete with Silicon Graphics, IBM, Apple, Next, etc.

There is also the fact that Sun didn't prohibit other operating system or application vendors from making operating systems or applications for its hardware by locking the boot loader.

No, I'm claiming that under the circustances that you (or the OP) described in the previous comment it wouldn't lead to an antitrust violation.

I can't talk for "under ANY circustances".

>That seems implausible

Well, the low allows it and companies have been doing it for ages, e.g with game consoles.

The OP was claiming that the reason Sun was not prosecuted for an antitrust violation despite the lack of OS competition for SPARC hardware was that other hardware existed in competition with SPARC. But the reason there was no competing OS to run on SPARC is not the same reason that there is no competing OS to run on iPhone. In the case of SPARC the lack of OS competition was not a result of any interference on the part of Sun. When Linux was subsequently ported to SPARC they made no effort to prevent it, I imagine they probably did most of the work. In the case of iPhone the lack of OS and app store competition is directly a result of Apple thwarting it. It is extremely likely that at least one of Android/Ubuntu/FirefoxOS/etc. would be ported to iPhone hardware in the alternative, and that Amazon or others would be operating competing app stores. So the existence of hardware competition was not the only thing saving Sun from an antitrust violation -- even if they had a strong hardware monopoly their behavior wouldn't have been an abuse of it. Apple is behaving differently. Its behavior is distinguishable from that of Sun in a way that makes an antitrust violation significantly more plausible. There is a much stronger argument that Apple exerts monopoly power over the market for iOS applications than Sun ever did over the market for Solaris applications. Which part of this do you deny?

> Well, the low allows it and companies have been doing it for ages, e.g with game consoles.

I'm not sure how clear that is. Was there an antitrust case against a game console maker in which they were vindicated? Just because the government has never prosecuted anyone doesn't mean it isn't a violation. Antitrust law is about as clear as mud and they rarely prosecute anybody even in cases of much less nuanced violations.

I thought it was because it tried to use its dominance in the desktop OS market to get dominance in the we browser market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp...:

"The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars"

You cannot buy a laptop not running Windows, unless you go Apple (a very small percentage of laptops sold, and high-end only). Businesses universally use PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. If you work in industry or manufacturing, you may have noticed that the drivers for specialist equipment are always for Windows. "Industry Standard" software like 3ds Max only runs on Windows. Government still overwhelmingly uses Windows, which is why it's still "news" when somewhere switches to Linux (usually Berlin again). Healthcare uses Windows.

In the consumer OS space, nobody is even trying to compete with them commercially. The worst they have to worry about there is poor publicity from a lemon version of Windows, because no matter how crap it is all new computers will still ship with it.

Seems to me Microsoft is still dominant.

Or ChromeOS. Or more traditional Linux (a number of vendors sell them). Last I checked (though I haven't for a while) you could even get OS-free laptops on NewEgg.

What more do you really need to know ? If this isn't abuse of monopoly power, then what is ?