But this case is not relevant, because Apple faces robust and significant competition from Android smartphones (though I would argue perhaps not in wearables).
Antitrust competition is not measured primarily by marketshare but market power, of which the main measure is pricing power, the propensity of people to shift from one offering to another of prices change. With regard to the App Store, would the people — app sellers — whom Apple charges for the service start to move to an alternative if Apple increased prices even incrementally, either expressly in terms of dollars charged or effectively by more-expensive-to-comply-with other terms?
No? Looks a lot like a monopoly, in antitrust terms, then.
What are effectively independent, descriptively similar, side-by-side markets that people don't move between in response to pricing changes aren't the same market for antitrust purpose, even if conventional media coverage labels them the same market and talks about marketshare in the combined market.
"Section 1 of the Sherman Act is violated when an unreasonable restraint of trade within an oligpoly results from a firm's course of action which serves to exclude competition from that market."
- United States v. Griffith, 334 U.S. 100 (1948)
There have been a number of bench decisions based on barriers to entry and market entrenchment to prohibit this sort of behavior by oligopolies, even if the Sherman act didn't specifically mention them.
No? Looks a lot like a monopoly, in antitrust terms, then.
What are effectively independent, descriptively similar, side-by-side markets that people don't move between in response to pricing changes aren't the same market for antitrust purpose, even if conventional media coverage labels them the same market and talks about marketshare in the combined market.