Comment by karmelapple
2 years ago
> iPhone has had 60% market share (or similar) for a long time now, so it's fair to consider that Apple has significant and durable market power in mobile phones.
It has market power, but it's not significantly larger than its competition. It's not 60% for iPhone, and 10% split up amongst 4 other competitors. It's 60% vs 40%... and probably more like 58% vs 42% [1].
Does 8% truly make Apple "dominant" to the point that integrating their software with watches in a better manner is illegal? I find that wildly difficult to believe.
> that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.
Apple has been able to raise its own prices, but it hasn't been wildly out of line with competitors.
And Apple both makes phones and the software on them. They might be excluding or making competitors to their software have a harder time, but excluding? Not really - they have only excluded other large companies who have distinctly decided to run afoul of their guidelines (specifically, Epic).
In a 60/40 market, probably both parties have significant market power and qualify to have their market powers checked.
And I think that's a great idea, but I think there has been no sign the DoJ plans to do that.
Is Google doing any of the things the DoJ complaint alleges against Apple?
a) supressing super apps
b) supressing cloud streaming apps
c) restricting capabilities of 3rd party messaging apps, specifically carrier based messaging (SMS)
d) restricting the best smartwatch integration to only their own devices
e) something I don't grok about digital wallets
There's maybe a case that Google is doing c; I think they made it harder to get the permissions for reading and writing SMS. And I don't think they allow non-Google, non-manfuacturer apps to do RCS, if RCS counts as carrier-based messaging and not yet another Google messaging service.
I don't understand the complaint about Digital Wallets, so I don't really know if Google is doing it.
I don't follow smartwatches, but I thought the Android ecosystem was pretty agnostic there? Back when Google Wear was Google Glass, they did let Google push notifications from a phone with Bluetooth, but everyone else had to push through Google servers, but I think when they moved it to wrists, that changed and everyone can push direct from the phone to the watch.
I haven't heard any drama over super apps or gaming streaming apps being blocked from Google Play... And worse case, developers can serve apks from their website directly.
I'm sure there's room to find things Google does with Android that could be market manipilation, but Google does seem to be aware of the risk and try to avoid crossing the line.
> It's not 60% for iPhone, and 10% split up amongst 4 other competitors
That is basically what it is though. Google is not the 40%, it's Google, Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc. Yes Google Play Store is on 40% of those devices, but they can ship with other stores and some do.
1. It is not Apple iPhone vs Samsung, LG, Pixel Android. But Apple iOS vs Android.
2. The 60% of Apple iPhone / iOS Market "usage" share ( incase people want to be pedantic and refer it as shipping market share ), commands over 70% if not 80% of purchasing power in Apps or other sub market sector. That is a huge difference in market power.