alt Hacker NewsIt depends how you define the market. In the 2001 microsoft case [0], the courts ruled Microsoft had a monopoly over the "Intel-based personal computer market".
Apple has a monopoly over the "M-chip" personal computer market. They have a monopoly over the iOS market with the app store. They have a monopoly over the driver market on macOS.
Like, Microsoft was found guilty of exploiting its monopoly for installing IE by default while still allowing other browser engines. On iOS, apple bundles safari by default and doesn't allow other browser engines.
If we apply the same standard that found MS a monopoly in the past, then Apple is obviously a monopoly, so at the very least I think it's fair to say that reasonable people can disagree about whether Apple is a monopoly or not.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
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I don't think any of what you're describing are legal "monopolies". I don't have a single Apple product in my life but I'm fairly sure there's nothing I'm prevented from doing because of that.
That’s not how monopoly definitions work. That makes about as much sense as saying Nintendo has a monopoly on Nintendo consoles or Ford has a monopoly on Mustangs
> Apple has a monopoly over the "M-chip" personal computer market. They have a monopoly over the iOS market with the app store
When a company is deemed an illegal monopoly, the DoJ basically becomes part of management. Antitrust settlements focus on germane elements, e.g. spin offs. But they also frequently include random terms of political convenience.
I don’t think we want a precedent where companies having a product means they have an automatic monopoly on said product.
Yes. If you define the market in a ridiculous manner and convince a court to go along with it, anybody can be a monopoly.
But the M series are an Apple product line designed by Apple with a ARM license and produced on contract by TSMC for use in other Apple products.
Don’t assume the facts from another case automatically apply in other cases.
Or as Justice Jackson once put it: “Other cases presenting different allegations and different records may lead to different conclusions”
There’s no such thing as “monopoly on Apple-produced processors” because that’s absurd. The monopoly for MacBook would be “consumer laptops” most likely. Apple does not have a monopoly in consumer laptops to the best of my knowledge.
Reductionism is so cringe.
Intel sold chips to anyone. Anyone could make Intel computers.
Apple does not sell chips to anyone. Nobody else can make m-series computers.
Your argument is basically that Ford has a monopoly on selling mustangs because standard oil had a monopoly on selling oil.
> Apple has a monopoly over the "M-chip" personal computer market
lmao what ? the "M-chip" is literally their chip that they designed, built relationships with TSMC over and bankrolled into production to put in their products. literally hardware by apple for apple. this was a decade plus long thing in the making, this is the risk/gamble apple took and invested heavily into. that is apples innovation. any other manuf is free to go do this themselves for their own devices, they just didn't and for the most part still don't. that just like isn't a monopoly at all, i'm amused you even got to that point in the first place. seems to carry some broad misunderstandings of what the M-series chips are or carries an assumption that cpus are supposed to be shared to any interested parties just because that was intels business model. intel was historically slacking & their one-size-fits-most approach wasn't meeting the engineering requirements apple was after generation after generation, so apple took the cpu destiny into their own hands and made their own. if you feel like non-apple laptop chips aren't living up to that kind of perf/ppu.... well yeah you'd be right. but that's not really apples fault. that's not a monopoly thing, like at all. either laptop manufs need to go make their own chip (unlikely) or intel/qualcomm/etc need to catch up.
I wouldn’t say it is obvious. Apple does not have the monopoly of ARM based PCs. Labeling it as a monopoly of M chips is not fair or accurate when comparing to MS on Intel. It’s also probably relevant that MS was not selling PCs or their own hardware. They had a monopoly on a market where you effectively had to use their software to use the hardware you bought from a different company. Because Apple is selling their own hardware and software as a single product, the consumer is not forced into restricting the hardware they bought by a second company’s policies.