Problems with this line of thinking:
1. Anti-trust implies monopoly. No monopoly on phones here. Plus it's Apple's store, you can't have a "monopoly" on your own product.
2. Apple haven't exhibited a consistent pattern of app rejections to imply any particular competitive bias. (They host many applications from their traditional competitors.)
3. Point 2 is moot, as it's still not a monopoly to begin with.
Compare Apple to Microsoft and IBM... Apple don't have the slightest on these mammoths.
Microsoft indirectly funded legal attacks on Linux; Apple is seeking to destroy Android entirely by abusing the patent system. Microsoft made it slightly more inconvenient to run competing browsers; Apple bans them altogether. Apple may not have the market share of that MS or IBM did, but they certainly have the attitude.
This statement is remarkably light on fact and heavy on sensationalism. Apple have received numerous patent disputes for technologies included in the iPhone. They hardly "threw the first punch."
I also wouldn't call this an abuse on the patent system - apple's current action is -precisely- what the patent system is useful for. Abuse would be similar behaviour to IBM in the 80s where they would racket money from start ups threatening them with the weight of their patent portfolio.
Also numerous browsers are available for the iPhone.
I'd really be more swayed into believing apple were this big evil company - if the other companies weren't as bad, if not worse.
I'd say they are all a little rotten, however by far I recognise that Apple is reasonably clean for a company that has had more than 30 years to make big public mistakes.
Potential monopolies must be handled with care. By the time a company becomes a monopoly, there's hardly any competition left. Seems like we didn't learn our lesson from when Microsoft crushed everyone else to swallow most of the x86 OS market, which it still dominates today, by a wide margin.
"you can't have a "monopoly" on your own product." Of course, you can only have monopoly on a market.
I honestly believe that you don't have a firm understanding of what a monopoly is, nor how they are expressed in the market. A large market share does not automatically make a monopoly. (However a large market share can be a key competitive advantage in establishing a monopoly.)
For example, the iPod makes up a large market share of MP3 players sold to date - but this doesn't prevent a consumer from purchasing a music player, music or other services from another company. This is because the iPod(in terms of music) is not a console device.
There is nothing apple can do to their iPod product that would prevent (for example) Amazon from being able to sell music. This is why Apple spend much money advertising - their lead is established by brand marketing. There are numerous other devices of various qualities/prices/capabilities which could replace the iPod.
Like the Amazon example - there is nothing Apple can do to their app store to prevent a developer from developing software for the Android platform. Apple's strict "quality" policies actually force many developers onto the Android platform. In that example Apple's policies have sponsored increased competition which is the exact opposite of monopolistic behaviour.
Just because the only way you get new software onto the iPhone is via the app store does not mean that Apple has a monopoly over their app store. This is simply a closed system - identical to any "console" market. The misconception mostly occurs because the iPhone is almost entirely unique in using this approach for smart phones, versus other manufacturers which allow software to be run in a fashion similar to modern PCs.
Microsoft on the other hand forced manufacturers to not support/purchase a competitors operating system software or face grossly increased wholesale prices on their windows OS product. Additionally they were able to abuse their operating system monopoly by leveraging this against competitor's software from unrelated categories. The IE vs Netscape saga is a good example of this. (However MS was found guilty of enacting this behaviour on numerous other companies, including Apple.)
"I honestly believe that you don't have a firm understanding of what a monopoly is, nor how they are expressed in the market. A large market share does not automatically make a monopoly."
I love this kind of argument - the straw man argument - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. "You don't know what you're talking about. A doesn't automatically follow from B" - usually following a comment where nothing was said about inferring A from B. I only asserted that monopoly destroys competition, which I'm sure you can agree with, and that in Microsoft's case the anti-trust lawsuit came too late, at a time when Microsoft had already abused their monopoly to bully hardware vendors/destroy the competition by any means necessary.
Maybe they can post a timer showing how long it took them to release it - since in the time that they started talking about Opera for iPhone, there have been numerous other releases from less hype-heavy developers. (e.g. iCab)
It's petty to take sides in either end of this - I doubt anyone is well read enough on the patent portfolios of either company to pass a legitimately informed comment.
I'm not suggesting that at all - you should always buy whatever is best for you regardless of politics. (Loyalty is for suckers.)
However I hope there is a total blood shed and all out patent war. I don't personally agree to the current method in which patents are used. It's a system desperately needing an overhaul. (Which is simply not going to happen.)
2. Apple haven't exhibited a consistent pattern of app rejections to imply any particular competitive bias. (They host many applications from their traditional competitors.)
3. Point 2 is moot, as it's still not a monopoly to begin with.
If you'd like to see what real monopolistic-competitor crunching behaviour is, then read up on the halloween documents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_l...
Compare Apple to Microsoft and IBM... Apple don't have the slightest on these mammoths.