Apple is not even close to a monopoly, especially in Europe, where they have less than a third of the mobile market. That said, the rest of the market is divided up between several different Android phone companies, so Apple is in fact the largest single mobile vendor in the EU (Samsung is neck and neck with them though, and may have overtaken them since I last checked).
So from a regulatory standpoint, Apple is the problem child even if it isn't a monopoly. The EU sees a third of its phone-using population as being "captured" by a uncompetitive foreign corporation that is far more restrictive and locked down than any of its competitors. Apple has also tenaciously resisted any attempts to open its platform by citing user security as a reason for its draconian level of control over the iPhone platform, so it became necessary for the EU to resort to powerful big-guns legislation to act. Well the big guns are here, and I don't think Apple's "user security" defense is going to be aegis enough against them.
> where they have less than a third of the mobile market
Its amazing how some people are SO obsessed with their favorite brand that they cant see outside its limits: Apple controls ~30%, Google controls ~30%, thats pretty much majority of the 'market'. And that 'market' is actual people, having to daily use these devices.
There being 3-4 companies implementing exactly similar business practices does not make an 'open market'. It makes uncoordinated, non-conspiratorial monopolies.
How does Apple have a monopoly? The only thing that comes close is the App Store, which requires you buy an iPhone, which is not the most common mobile device.
Further, other phone companies start from nothing and become quite successful in market place, and some fail, but consider OnePlus - they decided to make a "Flagship Killer" and are still delivering high quality devices.
They have monopoly power and control over app developers' access to iPhone users.
If supermarkets offered a loyalty card program that made it physically impossible for you to shop at another supermarket, then this would be a monopoly/anti-trust issue too, even if no supermarket had a majority share of the market.
The usual response of Apple fans is "You can just buy a second phone", but asking app developers to give away free Android phones to their iPhone-using potential customers is not really a viable competitive strategy.
That example only works if you were denied using the actual loyalty card for shopping at another market, which is actually the case? Nothing about the Apple ecosystem means you can't buy an Android and continue using it
As expected, this is the "Just buy an extra phone, 4Head" suggestion that we always hear. (I'm assuming users would still want to access the apps and media they bought on their iPhone).
If switching from an iPhone to an Android device required the user to jump through literal hoops, on camera, Apple fans would probably complain about governments forbidding hoop-jumping clauses in EULAs.
I wasn't saying "Just buy an extra phone, 4Head" - I was pointing out how your analogy was actually the equivalent of "Just buy an extra phone, 4Head", because loyalty cards can't be taken and used at unaffiliated stores, and yet people are more than welcome to open multiple loyalty accounts, one with each store.
I'm not suggesting that the government should require all OSes to provide identical APIs for apps to run on them, for example, as obviously that sort of "interoperability" would place an unreasonable burden on companies.
However, there are anti-competitive policies of Apple which burden not just app developers and users but Apple themselves, and it's really hard to justify their existence other than "monopolies are very profitable".
So from a regulatory standpoint, Apple is the problem child even if it isn't a monopoly. The EU sees a third of its phone-using population as being "captured" by a uncompetitive foreign corporation that is far more restrictive and locked down than any of its competitors. Apple has also tenaciously resisted any attempts to open its platform by citing user security as a reason for its draconian level of control over the iPhone platform, so it became necessary for the EU to resort to powerful big-guns legislation to act. Well the big guns are here, and I don't think Apple's "user security" defense is going to be aegis enough against them.