This only makes sense if you completely misunderstand the value of Apple as a company. You're asking for the death of Apple and it's entire ecosystem, not for an anti-trust solution.
As the person you’re replying to said, this only makes sense if you don’t understand what Apple is providing. They are selling an experience, not hardware. Innovation on one or the other in this hypothetical of two Apples means it’s available to all other market participants which means they’re paying for others research.
Then writing software becomes harder as you have to support everything under the sun and have difficulty deprecating things like MS does with windows. You have to check for individual hardware instead of writing for a platform. This argument is basically “what is the value of a platform?”
> Innovation on one or the other in this hypothetical of two Apples means it’s available to all other market participants which means they’re paying for others research.
They're already “paying for others' research”, because you're allowed to copy what Apple does.
> Then writing software becomes harder as you have to support everything under the sun
Whoever said they can't still write for a platform? It can be the responsibility of other iPhone manufacturers to make to-spec iPhones.
> They're already “paying for others' research”, because you're allowed to copy what Apple does.
Patents cover anything innovative.
> Whoever said they can't still write for a platform? It can be the responsibility of other iPhone manufacturers to make to-spec iPhones.
and this works well currently with android and other platforms (cough palm). on android tv can i stream wirelessly to my headphones with zero lag? on chromebooks can i sync a bluetooth mouse and it show up on my other chromebooks?
You cannot have 2 companies and still have tight integration.
Android is a software platform. Look at the stuff that people did on IBM PC (a hardware platform).
And also?
> on chromebooks can i sync a bluetooth mouse and it show up on my other chromebooks?
This is pure software. I could do that between a Debian machine and a Windows machine, if I wanted. You're overstating the need for software / hardware integration.
By the same logic, XBOX and the OS that runs it should be separate, and the PlayStation and the OS that runs on that should also be split into separate legal entities.
> By the same logic, XBOX and the OS that runs it should be separate,
That's kind of the case, nowadays; XBOX runs a slightly modified Windows 10, and you don't need to buy a Microsoft brand computer (the XBOX) to play XBOX games (you just need Microsoft Windows 10).
> and the PlayStation and the OS that runs on that should also be split into separate legal entities.
And that's besides the point. Games consoles are for playing video games on, but Apple is selling a general-purpose computing device (according to the adverts, at least). Their smart watches, yeah, I can understand treating that as an embedded system, but the iPhone‽ When they're profiting from their App Store monopoly, they have ulterior motives to keep it locked down, and antitrust should swoop in to save the day.