The biggest sin of Apple's business is the fact that no new platform can be built inside the iOS platform. When Windows got extremely high market share and solidified Microsoft's dominance over the desktop OS market, the web browser gave a chance for new companies to emerge to build on top of the desktop OS paradigm, like Google Search and Amazon. Now, no new platform can be built off of iOS because Apple doesn't allow alternate App Stores and Safari is crippled. You can't create a whacky app because Apple will most likely reject it however they see fit The Apple walled garden is basically a black hole and Apple sucks all the energy to themselves. Nothing can escape it.
The idea that real “wealth” can’t be built on the back of the iPhone is out of line with the facts.
Uber has a market cap of $160B. A not-insignificant fraction of Meta’s $1.2T value is derived from Instagram (which was notoriously iPhone-only when it took off like a rocket).
Apple has chosen to toll the specific market of digital goods delivered outside the open web. Even there, much wealth has been built: Before they decided it wasn’t worth the “broker fee”, Netflix was far and away the highest grossing app in the store for years on end.
My issue with Apple has been less about green vs blue text and more about how they lockout to lockin. In effect you can’t make equally competing products around and on the iPhone unless Apple supports and has decided the API, or user default options for the OS is safe for their business to make public. Innovation around the phone is steered and gatekept by Apple for when Apple is ready, not if the hardware is. This article makes a good point about the iPod and iTunes on Windows.
There are lesser known examples of policy based lockouts like mobiussync for syncthing being held back by background scheduling limitations or that bit torrent software isn’t allowed.
Then also there’s the issue of control center only allowing Apple builtin (unchangeable) default app controls… when interestingly a number of these have become more than just preinstalled conveniences but are now also fronting funnels to an iCloud subscription.
Lots of comments about "I’m no lawyer" and "But is this illegal? Once again, I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know," which makes the conclusion a bit, um, weird:
"A lot of this feels yucky, and none of the things mentioned in the case should be a surprise to anyone who has been following the Apple space for years. That said, it’s one thing for me to blog that Apple should change something, it’s another thing when the DOJ says it’s illegal. I think the DOJ has an uphill battle in winning this case..."
Imagine if MSFT didn’t allow iPods on Windows or took 30% of every song sold in iTunes. Crazy how much we’ve been collectively gaslit. Apple helped the anti-trust case against MSFT.
> A path-clearing antitrust enforcement case, brought by the United States and state attorneys general, against Microsoft opened the market and constrained Microsoft’s ability to prohibit companies like Apple from offering iTunes on Xbox.
TFTFY
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I do think it’s notable that (a) the iPod is what really pushed Apple off the brink and into the mainstream, setting them on the path that got them to be the biggest tech company in the world and (b) the iPod really took off once Windows users could buy it, and Apple would not have been able to do this if Microsoft had the same rules in place that Apple has over the iPhone and iPad.
Had never considered this, great points.