[tptacek]

That's also not how antitrust works. Read:

http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/reports/236681.pdf

Read the intro to section 2, then skip to section 2 and read the first couple pages.

Long story short: the acid test for "monopoly power" is, "if Apple jacked the prices up on iPhones, would its customers be unable to acquire reasonable substitutes." Since Apple has something less than 30% of the smart-phone market (note: that same DoJ doc says that market shares under 55% are probably prima facie excluded from antitrust enforcement), it's unreasonable to argue that consumers have no substitutes for iPhones.

Apple also has a huge share of games involving catapulting birds and falling refrigerators and cars, but, well, read above.

[gte910h]

There is another store for which normal people can buy software for iOS devices?

"would its customers be unable to acquire reasonable substitutes."

If you look at the class "iOS software" which is only legitimately sold by one vendor, the very definition of a monopoly. If Apple raised the price of all iPhone apps to 200k tomorrow, there would be no reasonable substitute for software for the device.

They do not have a monopoly of "mobile phones", they have a monopoly on "iOS software". Which is all sold by them (nonwithstanding tiny jailbroken stores). They do not have a monopoly on "Games about birds", as you can develop a substitute for that on other platforms which they do not control. You cannot however say they do not have a monopoly on the distribution of games about birds which run on iOS devices, because they clearly do.

As iOS software makes up 85% or more of all paid sales, this IS a legitimate issue for Anti-trust legal system, at least good enough to get in front of a judge.

[tptacek]

You are hopping between two arguments to avoid having to deal with the weaknesses of either of them.

On the one hand, you point out that Apple has a 100% monopoly on iOS applications. Of course, Twitter also has a 100% monopoly on Twitter apps. Surely nobody thinks Twitter has a monopoly.

On the other hand, you point to profit share in the wider market of smartphone apps. But of course the problem there is that Apple has less than 30% of the market for smart phones, and so clearly can't monopolize the market for smartphone apps.

[gte910h]

I'm not hopping between 2 arguments, I'm explaining how they meet the 55% bar, (85% of all paid app sales for all mobile phones are sold on the Apple AppStore, so they clearly are meeting marketshare requirements if the government wants to prosecute), and how they do actually have pricing power, which is merely responding to your arguments.

So you're saying if Toyota only ran on gas with a certain additive, and 85% of all gas sales were for Toyota cars, the company who had control of the additive wouldn't be possibly considered a monopoly?

The cost of the phone and the contract which locks you into a carrier makes this a much bigger deal then you think it is, and very possibly does give the FTC pause (among restraint of trade arguments as well).

I mean, this case was sustained past summary judgement: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2010/07/iphone-A...

And people in Washington were talking about investigating (although not necessarily on AT basis).http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/an_antitrust_app_buvCW...

You're trying to argue they're not a monopoly, and I'm saying it's at least close enough that could become a finding of fact for the judge/jury in a court case to decide, which is likely close enough to make the company back off its more onerous behaviors to avoid the expense of that sort of case.

I honestly think the restraint of trade issues are much bigger than the AT ones, but that wasn't what this thread was about.