tundraboy

The most important concept that the judge raised in his ruling is "single-brand markets".

Anyone who ever contemplates filing an antitrust suit against Apple should learn this term first.

It is a legal absurdity to accuse a company of acting as an illegal monopoly in the market for its own-brand products.  Every company is unavoidably a monopolist in its own-brand products.

Microsoft:Personal Computing OSes and Apple:iPhone Branded Smartphones is not a valid analogy

The lawyer who filed this suit should be disbarred for incompetence bordering on stupidity.

Just because a company (such as Apple) sells a product that a lot of people choose over the competitors' (such as Android phone mfrs), even if the competitor is priced much cheaper, doesn't make that company a monopolist.

An example of a monopolist is a company who tells their customers "You pay us based on how many computers you sell, even if some of your computers are shipped with OS2 rather than DOS/Windows. If you don't agree to that, then we won't sell DOS/Windows to you."  That is baldfaced coercion, which is what Microsoft got criminally convicted for (among other practices).

JustSomeGuy1 said:

fred1 said:

Unbelievable. Apple was under no obligation to sell Tiles and they have every right to stop selling them. Quit whining and find a solution. Likewise Apple has every right to change its OS to favor its own products. Welcome to capitalism and competition.

True, Apple's not obligated to sell Tiles. Their whining about that is a waste of breath.

On the other hand, it's been established for many decades now that a monopoly platform company can be forced to open that platform to others. 

Umm, Apple doesn't have a monopoly platform in iOS.

With Android as a not insignificant competitor, iOS isn't even a dominant platform like Microsoft had with Windows before Mac sales got some traction after the Intel switch.

So all your succeeding examples touting the case of Microsoft Windows is totally inapplicable.

BTW, gaining market share is not evidence of monopoly.  If it's evidence for anything at all, it's that more and more consumers like your product.  When customers liking your product makes you a monopoly, that's the end of the free enterprise system.

crowley said:

tundraboy said:

Who has ever heard of a company forcing you to buy an item that you don't want to buy?  Who has ever heard of any instance where the US allows a company to force a person to buy something that they don't need or want?  Who has ever heard of any instance where the US allows a company to force a person to buy something that they already have?

Lots of things you buy come with tooling as part of the package, and it’s not an option to not include the tool. E.g. Self assembly furniture often comes with spanners and hex keys appropriate for the nuts and bolts.

Yeah, I expected somebody would exit the zone of common sense and raise that just for the sake of argument, even though the throwaway tools that IKEA et al bundles with their disposable furniture is not anywhere as expensive (either on an absolute or proportional basis) as what the article implies about the special repair tools that Apple will offer.  Aside from the insignificant cost of a hex key, the other factor is that no customer has ever filed a formal complaint about the practice of bundling the cheap tools.

I guarantee you if any company says when you buy our $200 repair part, you are required to buy this $100 tool no exceptions, the feds will be on that company's case the moment a consumer complains about it.  And don't doubt that a consumer, backed by a law firm seeking fees from a class-action settlement, is going to come forward.

It's a great PR move.  The government gets of their back about monopolizing repair services, the 29 people who want to repair their own iPhones will be rejoicing, and the rest of the iPhone owners will not even notice.  Although Apple's bottomline will get hit by about 0.0000001%.