No, I think you're the one that is unclear. iOS is now a general platform computer and it is 100% incompatible with all the other "mobile" computer hardware out there. Thus, pointing out that there is an Android store and THAT competes with Apple's App store is utterly ABSURD. The two are NOT competing with each other
PERIOD and that is because you cannot get an app on the Android store for an iPhone and vice-versa. So exactly how are they the "same market" ??? Apple's HARDWARE (i.e. a phone or tablet versus another phone or tablet) DOES compete with Android hardware and with Rim hardware, etc. etc. because they ARE in the same market. You have a choice of operating hardware. But once you pick your hardware, you have NO CHOICE for where to get your software from on Apple hardware.
THUS, Apple has a virtual market on SOFTWARE for the iOS hardware platform. You CANNOT buy software ANYWHERE ELSE but Apple's App store. Hence the terms virtual monopoly. That is the difference between
SOFTWARE and
HARDWARE. You imply they are the same thing. They most definitely are NOT.
It's not the app store itself; it's Apple's fascist control policies that no other store fronts are allowed to exist for the iOS computer market. If you are the ONLY brand store in the entire country that will service a GM car and you will not allow anyone else to service that care when they want to set up a store, you have a virtual monopoly on SERVICE for that car. You don't have a monopoly on the car, but servicing the car. They are separate markets. Meineke does not sell cars. They sell service for cars. Microsoft does not sell computers. They sell operating systems for computers. Apple sells computers and operating systems and does their best to make sure both are TIED together so you cannot put their software on any computer hardware but their own. Thus, even Apple's regular computer hardware doesn't even compete on an even playing field since you cannot but a Dell and put OSX on it without violating Apple's license agreement. Apple is about as anti-competitive as they come. Some of the things they are doing or may be planning to do makes Microsoft look tame by comparison.
But it goes even further. Apple is also (due to their mono-storefront status) a gatekeeper for software. In short, they decide what you can and cannot put on your iPad. If they don't want an adult game on their computer, they can simply not approve it. Worse yet, they don't even tell app makers IF they'll approve a given app ahead of time so companies like Google had to decide whether to potentially waste man-hours making an app like an update to Google maps without knowing whether Apple would approve it given their own app appeared (which typically falls under the "not allowed to compete with Apple" clause). But you don't find this anti-competitive?
Gone are the days when the excuse of Apple being a small fry would fly. Apple has become bigger than Microsoft. They should have to play by the same rules as Microsoft. Not only does Apple package their own browser with iOS, but they will not even
allow another browser on their platform since it competes with it. If that is not anti-competitive I don't know what is. Even Microsoft didn't stop people from installing Netscape on a computer running Windows. They simply packaged Internet Explorer with the operating system. In the days of dial-up this discouraged anyone from bothering, but it wasn't a monopoly on the browser market on their operating system. But notice how it does not matter what came with OSX because Microsoft had no control over OSX. Similarlly, it doesn't matter that Android exists because it's a different platform entirely just like Mac OSX was a different platform from Windows. The problem is what the company is doing to discourage or ban competition on their own platform. Microsoft discouraged people from using Netscape (minor IMO compared to this) while Apple won't even allow Firefox as a full blown browser since it would be competing with Safari.
That would be true if Apple weren't preventing any other App store fronts from opening up for iOS devices. Apple can decide what goes on the iTunes store because they are not the only store for music distribution on the planet and thus that would be an apt comparison if we were talking about music. But we're talking about ALL SOFTWARE FOR iOS and Apple is the ONLY game ALLOWED in town. Software for iOS *IS* a market and Apple has total control of it. If they only allowed their own apps, you might still have an argument since hardware/software are tied and are mutually exclusive. But they allow 3rd party software on their platform so it is not mutually exclusive. They've created a 3rd party software market for their iOS computer platform, but are denying developers the right to distribute their software by any other store.
It would be like if Sony owned their own car company and made a stereo on which only music from Columbia records could play and furthermore they integrated the car's ECU into the stereo so that replacing the stereo without going to fairly extreme measures would render the car undriveable. You could distribute your music to be playable on that car, but only if you gave 30% to Sony and they in turn altered it to the encrypted format that would play on their stereos. They are purposely preventing you from being able to get your music into their cars in order to collect 30% of your revenue. You can argue they're a storefront and that's a standard fee, but the problem is that you cannot get your music to play in their cars without paying them almost 1/3 of your revenue. If they simply distributed music for their car, but didn't prevent other stores' digital music from playing on their car stereo, then there would be no issue.
THAT is what Apple is doing. They are purposely not allowing software distribution for iOS computers (and they are computers now, not just smart phones as the iPad is most definitely a computer) except through their store and at their discretion. This is closer to Nintendo only allowing games on their platform by paid developers. You can argue it's the same thing, but a gaming system is a bit different from a general purpose computer. Never before has anyone limited software distribution on a general purpose computer. Worse yet, OSX may eventually do the same thing (Gatekeeper is already in place and it would only take a small change to make 3rd party software sold outside the App store a thing of the past except for hacks/jailbreaking).
Maybe that's the world
you want to live in where companies like Apple decide what you can and cannot do on your computer, but to me it's even worse than Big Brother because it's not even the government doing it; it's a freaking company designed only to make profit. What gives them the right in a free society to decide whether you can watch one movie, but not another or to use one browser, but not another? You might as well just move to China while you're at it.
