Ask HN: Why is there no stopping Apple's monopoly of tablet/phone's browsers?
If there is lawsuit after lawsuit against microsoft for things such as, e.g., having Internet Explorer pre-installed, bundling their media player with the operating system, etc., then why the fuck hasn't there been anything done about the fact iOS, as now more than ever, being in a dominant position in the tablet/smartphone market offers literally NO alternatives of browsers or outlets with which to install software (App Store)?<p>Have they built something that slots perfectly in a loophole which prevents any kind of requirement of freedom of choice for browsers, and indeed all software?
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 63.8 ms ] threadBy bundling the browser and penalizing manufacturers who wanted to bundle a different browser in addition or instead of Microsoft's, Microsoft was using their dominance in one market (desktop operating systems for x86 PCs) to try to gain power in an unrelated market (internet browsing applications that run on Windows). Hence, they ran into antitrust problems.
In tablets and smartphones, there has not really been a separate market for internet browsing applications. The market for tablets and smartphones has been for complete internet devices (hardware, OS, and browser) from the start.
If you go into any non-Apple electronics store you can buy many devices which don't use iOS. When everyone made the big stink about Microsoft's monopoly it was almost impossible to buy a computer without Windows installed from any major retailer or manufacturer.
Considering Windows RT will be a minority player in the marketplace, with Apple the dominant player, one would think that Apple would face equal attention from the EU.
[1]http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407324,00.asp
(a) It was sincerely better than Netscape at the time (b) It came bundled in with the system (c) It came bundled in with the system because Microsoft chose not to charge ISPs to do.
It's funny how bundling a browser got MS into trouble but is now de facto.
Wonder when Apple hijacking browser links and re-routing them to their own apps e.g. Google Map links to iOS maps app, will be considered monopolistic.
The way out is to convince everyone who owns an iOS device to jailbreak it. And then, the development community needs to band together and convince Google, Opera, and Mozilla to port to iOS their full web browsers, including their render and JS engines, and distribute these browsers on Cydia. This would go a long way to loosening Apple's force grip on their platform and their customers.
Apple a monopoly on Apple devices, but that's fine. Saying that they have a "monopoly" here is like saying that Coke has a monopoly on the contents of Coke bottles, and they should be forced to fill some with Pepsi. Perhaps less glibly, that things like XBox should be forced to ship Mario, or that Microsoft must release Halo for the PS3. Just because we're used to anything with a CPU being "free for all developers to ship whatever they like onto" doesn't make it a right enforceable by law. If that's your preference, great - buy devices that support this. We do not want the government dictating policy in an area so young, and highly competitive.
If, in a few years, the iPad has become the tablet computer with 99% of the marketshare, there might be an argument for an antitrust case against App Store policies. But that looks very unlikely to be the case.
Fundamentally, monopoly regulation (like that which affected microsoft) is for monopolies. I really dislike Apple's lock-down-heavy policies, but as long as there are credible alternatives out there there's little reason to be concerned.
There's no loophole, Apple is small enough in percentages and there's that much more choice that they can't be classed as a monopoly. Don't like it? Don't buy the product. The issue was with Windows there was only one game in town for the vast majority.
Point two: Original intent of sales. iPhones and Android and other phones are sold as a smart phone. As long as it is not sold as a computer, the vendors are free to dictate what is possible and what is not.
NB: While Android does has third party browsers, it should be noted that the default Browser.app can not be recreated using the Android SDK as it relies on private APIs.
Because MS got convicted, they're forced to make up for all sort of things and that is why MS is getting all sort of attentions about the browsers, they're still regulated by the governments due to the laws that MS broke.
Apple hasn't done any of that, so there are no regulations and Apple is fully in its right to do what it wants.
Antitrust law tries to be reasonable. This means that for those things that are the main or essential components of a produce, the manufacturer should be free to choose those components.
If antitrust law looked too deeply into individual components, costs for everyone would go way up. Imagine the manufacturing nightmare if, say, Dell had to worry that if they used capacitors from Dielectric Laboratories in their motherboards, they might get sued for not also offering the choice of capacitors from Johnson Dielectrics, ROHM Products, or Illinois Capacitor.
For tablets and smartphones, internet browsing is practically one of the defining features of the product. A typical consumer who bought a tablet and found it had no browser preinstalled would be about as shocked as someone who bought a Ford and found no engine installed.
I'm curious about if Apple did have a majority market share, would they then be classified as monopolistic?
I understand Apple's point in terms of securing the OS, but allowing mobile safari to have higher access privileges over 3rd party browsers seems unfair, no?