[AnthonyMouse]

Intel and AMD compete with each other and are essentially fungible. It's not as if you can only run Windows on Intel and Linux on AMD, they both run on both. Substantially all software that runs on one will run on the other. They're even widely compatible with the same memory DIMMs, PCIe devices, screens and other peripherals. Neither company requires you to buy an entire system from them instead of just the processor, restricts what software you can run or tries to wall up a troll bridge between third parties and the end user.

You're not in any sense locked in, because it's so easy to switch.

[scarface_74]

What type of “troll bridge” does Apple impose on installing software on a Mac?

[AnthonyMouse]

The desire is to be able to freely install apps on device with an Apple CPU that fits in your pocket. You can't build your own phone with one, because they won't sell you the CPU by itself. You can't use the CPU in a Mac for that, because it's soldered to something that won't fit in your pocket. So you're left with an iPhone, with a troll bridge between the user and the app developer.

[scarface_74]

Or you can do like 80% of the rest of the world does and buy an Android phone and you can have all of the “freedom” that you want.

[AnthonyMouse]

Google is barely any better, using different methods to maintain Google Play at more than 95% market share for Android apps.

But how does an Android phone get you an Apple CPU? Or to put it another way, if your app customers want the Apple CPU, and they want your app, how do they get them both together without the troll bridge between you?

[scarface_74]

An Apple CPU is another version of the ARM chip. How do I buy a Whopper at McDonalds?

Pepsi chooses to not serve customers who go to McDonald’s and Costco chooses not to serve Amex customers.

You either choose to work with customers where they are or you don’t. Just like video game makers

[AnthonyMouse]

> An Apple CPU is another version of the ARM chip. How do I buy a Whopper at McDonalds?

It's not that you want to buy a Whopper at McDonalds. It's that you have a Ford and if you try to drive it to Burger King to buy a Whopper they disable your car because Ford owns McDonalds and Chevy owns Burger King.

Which in turn keeps anyone from producing a new make of car or a new brand of food, because no existing source of food will serve you if you're not in the parent company's vehicle and no one can scale a new restaurant or grocery chain enough to make some other brand of vehicles viable when people in existing vehicles can't patronize it.

This kind of tying is meant to be prohibited.

> Pepsi chooses to not serve customers who go to McDonald’s and Costco chooses not to serve Amex customers.

People who want Pepsi can go into McDonalds, come out with a Big Mac, pick up a Pepsi at any vending machine or convenience store and go sit down and have them together. People who buy a washing machine at CostCo on their Visa can go buy detergent for it from Walmart with their Amex.

> You either choose to work with customers where they are or you don’t. Just like video game makers

The same antitrust action should be applied to video game consoles.

[robertlagrant]

You can't service those customers. Just as the Chelsea Truck Company can't sell its customers modified Land Rovers without buying a Land Rover first.

[AnthonyMouse]

A company who wants to make entirely their own car can do so and its customers can still drive it on the same roads and buy fuel from the same gas stations.

A company who wants to make mostly their own car and use some parts from another manufacturer can do that too:

https://www.hotcars.com/awesome-cars-powered-by-other-manufa...

This is the normal operation of a competitive market. Chelsea Truck Company wants their vehicles to be mostly Land Rover so they start with a Land Rover.

But Apple interferes with even that. If you wanted to buy iPhones to mod and resell, they stop you from putting your own operating system on it, and their operating system doesn't have drivers for your custom components.