[melff]

Pardon me, I think you misunderstand what I claim they have a monopoly on. They (obviously) don't have a monopoly on the mobile(or mobile software) market. They have a monopoly on the iOS software distribution market(a secondary market spawned by apple themselves). On an iOS device you cannot install a different App Store, therefor the end-user has no other choice than using Apple's App Store to download/buy software(=monopoly).

TL;DR iphones don't have a monopoly, the _AppStore_ has.

On Andoird the situation is a bit murkier, you technically can install software from outside Google's playstore, but you have to click trough scary dialogs(warnings about the danger of doing so), and App Stores installed that way don't have the same device permissions than googles play store have(you have to manually confirm each software update, for example). so yeah, on android it's debatable, but that's a story for another time.

[zepto]

Everyone has a monopoly on their own products. Samsung has a monopoly on Galaxy phones. Tesla has a monopoly on Model Ss. It’s meaningless to say that Apple has a monopoly on a certain part of the iPhone infrastructure, since it’s their product.

Of course they don’t have a monopoly on mobile apps or app stores or phones. There are competing products.

[melff]

You're conflating the phones themselves with the secondary markets they create.

The problem is that Apple has a monopoly in selling/distributing Apps to iphone users. This is not the case on other operating systems, technically not even on android(eg. Samsung) and has nothing to do with a "monopoly on their own products".

[shukantpal]

You're calling a product (iOS app platform) a secondary market.

[melff]

A phone is a product, the iOS app platform(or app distribution on iOS to be more precise) is a (monopolized) market, not a product.