It depends how you define the market. In the 2001 microsoft case [0], the courts ruled Microsoft had a monopoly over the "Intel-based personal computer market".

Apple has a monopoly over the "M-chip" personal computer market. They have a monopoly over the iOS market with the app store. They have a monopoly over the driver market on macOS.

Like, Microsoft was found guilty of exploiting its monopoly for installing IE by default while still allowing other browser engines. On iOS, apple bundles safari by default and doesn't allow other browser engines.

If we apply the same standard that found MS a monopoly in the past, then Apple is obviously a monopoly, so at the very least I think it's fair to say that reasonable people can disagree about whether Apple is a monopoly or not.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

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hilsdev 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wouldn’t say it is obvious. Apple does not have the monopoly of ARM based PCs. Labeling it as a monopoly of M chips is not fair or accurate when comparing to MS on Intel. It’s also probably relevant that MS was not selling PCs or their own hardware. They had a monopoly on a market where you effectively had to use their software to use the hardware you bought from a different company. Because Apple is selling their own hardware and software as a single product, the consumer is not forced into restricting the hardware they bought by a second company’s policies.

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AnthonyMouse 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Labeling it as a monopoly of M chips is not fair or accurate when comparing to MS on Intel.

The relevant thing here isn't the chips, it's tying things to the chips, because those would otherwise be separate markets. If you could feasibly buy an iPhone and install Android or Lineage OS on it or use Google Play or F-Droid on iOS then no one would be saying that Apple has a monopoly on operating systems or app stores for iOS since there would actually be alternatives to theirs.

The fake alternative is that you could use a different store by buying a different phone, but this is like saying that if Toyota is the only one who can change the brake pads on a Toyota and Ford is the only one who can change the brake pads on a Ford then there is competition for "brake pads" because when your Toyota needs new brake pads you can just buy a Ford vehicle. It's obvious why this is different than anyone being able to buy third party brake pads for your Toyota from Autozone, right?

> It’s also probably relevant that MS was not selling PCs or their own hardware.

This is the thing that unambiguously should never be relevant. It can't be a real thing that you can avoid being a monopoly by owning more of the supply chain. It's like saying that Microsoft could have avoided being a monopoly by buying Intel and AMD, or buying one of them and then exterminating the other by refusing to put Windows on it. That's a preposterous perverse incentive.

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Affric 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> It can't be a real thing that you can avoid being a monopoly by owning more of the supply chain.

Move the most important aspects of your software to hardware. Hard for MacOS but for a Chromebook style thing you could write the browser into its own pice of wafer.

Google should pay me to be this evil.

	▲	AnthonyMouse 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Move the most important aspects of your software to hardware. So now you have a piece of silicon with a two year old version of Chrome with seventeen CVEs hard-coded into it, and still have all the same antitrust problems because the device still also has an ordinary general purpose CPU that you're still anti-competitively impeding people from using to run Firefox or Ladybird.

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SvenL 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well “had to use” is a strong phrase here. Linux was already around and you could have used it too with your hardware. I think you can always bend an argument to fit your point.

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detourdog 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The PC manufacturers had to pay MS for a license no matter what operating system was installed.

	▲	LocalH 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. Pepperidge Farm remembers Microsoft's campaign against "naked PCs"

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SllX 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes. If you define the market in a ridiculous manner and convince a court to go along with it, anybody can be a monopoly.

But the M series are an Apple product line designed by Apple with a ARM license and produced on contract by TSMC for use in other Apple products.

Don’t assume the facts from another case automatically apply in other cases.

Or as Justice Jackson once put it: “Other cases presenting different allegations and different records may lead to different conclusions”

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Underphil 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think any of what you're describing are legal "monopolies". I don't have a single Apple product in my life but I'm fairly sure there's nothing I'm prevented from doing because of that.

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TheDong 8 hours ago | parent [-]

And back in the "Microsoft has a monopoly on IE6" ruling's days, I did not use Windows or Internet Explorer, and I was not prevented from doing anything because of that. Netscape Navigator on Linux worked fine. Sure, I occasionally hit sites that were broken and only worked in IE, but I also right now frequently hit apps that are "macOS only" (like when Claude Cowork released, or a ton of other YC company's apps).

Microsoft was found guilty, so clearly the bar is not what you're trying to claim.

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selectodude 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Microsoft was found guilty of using their market power to do product bundling, which is illegal. The fact that they had dominance in the market is not what they got popped for, nor is it illegal.

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longislandguido 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Let me know how I can unbundle Safari from macOS or iOS.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

	▲	chongli 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's possible on the Mac, but it's not easy. Apple uses an immutable system volume on macOS, so you can't just delete the Safari app like you would a user-installed app. To actually delete Safari you need to disable System Integrity Protection and reboot. There are plenty of Linux distributions that use immutable root volumes. They protect the user in a huge number of ways by preventing the system from getting hosed (either by accident or by malicious unauthorized users / malware). Apple made the decision to do this for their users, and it has prevented a HUGE amount of tech support calls, as well as led to millions of happy users with trouble-free computers. It also hasn't stopped users from installing Chrome and/or Firefox on their Macs, and millions of ordinary users have.

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sroussey 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You just described Apple.

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selectodude 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Apple has not, to my knowledge, required OEMs to bundle Safari with macOS alongside threats to withhold macOS if they don’t comply expressly to put Firefox out of business.

But hey, maybe some weird shit happened during the clone years that I’m not privy to.

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SvenL 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Apple requires Developers to use AppStore with their App alongside threats to withhold their App if they don’t comply.

Just an example… and yes, I know the EU ruling but it’s still fitting.

	▲	pdpi 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The crucially important subtlety here is that Apple requiring developers to use the App Store doesn't leverage an existing monopoly (like what Microsoft had with Windows). Compare the games console market. Nintendo is allowed to say you have to go through them to sell games for the Switch, ditto Microsoft with the Xbox. Sony doing the same thing with the Playstation is exactly equivalent, but they're approaching the sort of market dominance where it might soon be illegal for them (and them alone) to do that in some markets.

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pdpi 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The issue was never "Microsoft has a monopoly on IE6". That's obviously nonsense.

The monopoly that Microsoft held was the home computer operating system market, first through DOS, then later through Windows. Holding a monopoly like that isn't illegal unto itself. What they were actually found guilty of was unfairly leveraging their monopoly on the OS market to gain the upper hand in a different market (the browser market). The subsequent range of issues we had with IE6 (compatibility, security, etc) was a result of Microsoft succeeding in achieving a monopoly on the browser market through illicit means.

Likewise, "Apple has a monopoly on the App Store" is just the same amount of nonsense. What you could argue is that Apple has a monopoly on the home computer market, or the mobile phone market, and that the way they integrate the App Store should be considered illegal leveraging of that monopoly, but that argument simply doesn't hold water — Microsoft's monopoly on the OS market at the time was pretty much incontrovertible, you simply couldn't walk into a shop and buy a computer running something else (except maybe a Mac at a more specialised place). Today, just about any shop you walk into that sells computers will probably have devices for sale running three different OSes (macOS, Windows, ChromeOS). Any phone place will have iPhones and Android devices, and probably a few more niche options. Actual market share percentage is nowhere near the high 90s that Microsoft saw in its heyday. At most, Apple is the biggest individual competitor in the market, but I don't think it hold an outright majority in any specific product class.

Mind you, I think that there is a good argument to be made that the Apple/Google duopoly on mobile devices does deserve scrutiny, but that's a very different kettle of fish.

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Underphil 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, but that was coupled with other factors like them strongarming vendors, already being hugely dominant on desktops and abusing that position et al. I don't see this as being the same. Maybe my bar here is wrong, but it doesn't change whether they are a monopoly or not.

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jonhohle 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You were not prevented from doing anything, but that doesn’t mean others weren’t. For example, OEMs were not allowed to offer any other preinstalled OS as a default option. That effectively killed Be and I’m sure hindered RedHat.

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raw_anon_1111 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s not how monopoly definitions work. That makes about as much sense as saying Nintendo has a monopoly on Nintendo consoles or Ford has a monopoly on Mustangs

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JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Apple has a monopoly over the "M-chip" personal computer market. They have a monopoly over the iOS market with the app store

When a company is deemed an illegal monopoly, the DoJ basically becomes part of management. Antitrust settlements focus on germane elements, e.g. spin offs. But they also frequently include random terms of political convenience.

I don’t think we want a precedent where companies having a product means they have an automatic monopoly on said product.

	▲	ascagnel_ 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		More to the point: having a monopoly isn't de facto illegal (just look up natural monopolies), it's using the monopoly power in an anti-competitive way that's illegal. Microsoft wasn't charged with having a monopoly, they were charged because they used that monopoly to exclude Netscape Navigator and force bundling of IE.