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by alanfranz 2030 days ago
(Disclaimer: maybe I haven't fully understood what you meant, I'm assuming you're claiming Apple ought to be split up somehow and/or limited in its advantages)

> Hell I'd rather have an A11 from 2017 in my brand new Android phone.

Beaucse of it single-thread performance, I suppose?

> Complete vertical integration [...] is certainly creating a captive market segment which has only been growing in total size

I can't say I agree with the captive market argument. The problem with Apple is that a) it sells a lot and b) its product are probably the best ones.

But we can't say there's no alternative to Apple products - there are a lot. They're just not as good as Apple's.

Tesla is the best electric car. Is anybody thinking about splitting it up and claiming they're anti-competition? Some few luxury car brands (BMW, Mercedes, Audi) command an awful lot of the high-end car market, and offer some features that cheap cars don't have (e.g. Mercedes PRE-SAFE). Should they be split up?

A monopoly is something different. We wouldn't blame Rolls Royce for making the "best cars" at the highest price level.

Of course, if Apple sold their phones for $50 and their M1 laptops for $300, there could be a case for pushing other solutions out of the market. But this is NOT going to happen; the cheapest Apple phone on the market (iPhone SE) is 2x the price of a decent midrange Android phone, and the cheapest Apple M1 laptop (MB Air) is 2x/2.5x a cheap windows/linux option.