From the very beginning, it is clear what the author was talking about:
> Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS. That means Apple can not only capture consumer surplus on hardware, but developer surplus when it comes to app sales; that some apps are not made is deadweight loss that Apple has chosen to bear to ensure total control.
Let me know when you can buy an iPhone from a different manufacturer. Again, author said Apple has a monopoly on iOS, not smartphones. That iOS monopoly takes about 80% of all the profits from the smartphone market worldwide, BTW.
Even in the US they are less than 50% smartphone marketshare, and about 10% desktop/laptop marketshare - hardly a monopoly. They just have huge profit margins which explains their buckets of cash.
Monopoly isn't defined by marketshare in some descriptive category, it's defined by market (pricing) power. If you have that's you have a monopoly (which makes sense, because that means that even if there are participants in the same descriptive category, you empirically are not competing with them for sales.)
> Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS. That means Apple can not only capture consumer surplus on hardware, but developer surplus when it comes to app sales; that some apps are not made is deadweight loss that Apple has chosen to bear to ensure total control.