alt Hacker News> why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors
Yeah, this is the fundamental problem, and not something this court ruling does anything to fix. Apple has full control over what software its competitors are allowed to sell. The court's solution? Tell Apple to be more fair when dictating rules to its competitors. Yeah... I'm sure that'll work great.
Yep, on their platform. Just like Wal-Mart and Kroger have full control over what products their competitors are allowed to sell too (in-store versus name brands). Microsoft only makes and sells their games for example for the Windows platform and doesn't allow portability.
As a pattern there's nothing wrong with it.
The crux of the issue is that creation of a mobile operating system that people actually want, like in some other industries, as resulted in two dominant platforms that don't compete all that much with each other. That's a much more interesting and important "problem" to solve than Apple/Google create competing apps on their software distribution platforms.