[dlubarov]

> The government can not compel two companies to engage in a contract.

It seems like there ought to be exceptions to prevent certain gatekeeping behavior. As a very extreme example, suppose a company bought up a set of private roads in such a way that without their roads, people in a certain area could not access the rest of the country. One would hope that the government would compel the gatekeeper to do business with everyone! (Perhaps with some reasonable fees, weight limits, etc.)

Apple decided to insert themselves as a gatekeeper between iOS users and developers, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to them that deciding to "not engage" with some parties raises antitrust concerns, since it means blocking users and developers from engaging in mutually beneficial relationships.

[bobbylarrybobby]

But apple didn't buy up anything preexisting -- they created the smartphone market from scratch and grew the user and developer base organically. You could argue that they leveraged their Mac developer base for this, but 1. the first iPhone didn't support third party apps and 2. there was nothing to leverage this developer base against because there was no smartphone market when the iPhone was released.

Also, if we accept that smartphones are a necessity on par with roads, iPhones aren't the only smartphones, and Androids aren't really that inferior. As a user, if you don't like iPhones, get an Android. As a developer, if you don't like developing for iPhones, develop for Android. If either group feels like they can't leave for Android because iPhones are that much better, well, that's Apple's reward for creating a good device and growing its user- and developer bases -- should they really be punished for that success?

[ornitorrincos]

You make it sound as if there was no market for phone applications before the iphone, which at least in europe is not true.

And the punishment would not be because a company succeeds, but because a company abuses its success position to stiffle competition and artificially placing their other offerings in a better place.

[_mkef]

Everyone can access all the above the services via the original personal computing device, a PC.

Other roads exists. If I have a private road, but 3 or 4 other roads still go to the same place you can't drive over my gate since you feel like it