> your complaint is not in Apple's behavior, but your regret that the competition sucks and it's not Apple's fault
Apple uses their dominant position in the smartphone market to exert leverage over the smartwatch market and block other companies' access to a huge chunk of potential smartwatch buyers. Reduced addressable market->reduced potential returns->reduced investment->worse products for everyone.
This same pattern hurts Apple users as well because Apple can reduce their investment, increase prices, or both, without worrying about being beaten on quality or price.
> Most people choose to buy iPhones knowing that only certain watch options work.
This statement would be true if iPhone had 0.1% or 99.9% marketshare and is on its own irrelevant to whether or not it should be regulated. The whole point of regulating companies with dominant market positions is that they have tools to force customers into sub-optimal outcomes regardless of whether or not the customer recognizes it beforehand.
> If Apple did something anticompetitive to keep Android options from being good, then you probably have a winnable legal case. But it seems like Google, Samsung, and the other Android players are losing on their own merits.
This ignores the dozens of Smartwatch companies that don't have a smartphone business to integrate with. In your view, what should Garmin have done if the major Android players blocked 3rd party feature parity from the beginning along with Apple? Would Garmin need to make their own smartphone and OS to compete for watch sales, or would their product just not exist? Would that be good or bad for the industry?
> Apple uses their dominant position in the smartphone market to exert leverage over the smartwatch market and block other companies' access to a huge chunk of potential smartwatch buyers.
They also don't make the Apple Watch compatible with Android, so they are also giving up their own access to a huge chunk of potential buyers (70% of worldwide smartphone users are on Android). So maybe we're missing something.
> In your view, what should Garmin have done if the major Android players blocked 3rd party feature parity from the beginning along with Apple?
In your view, what would happen if only one smart phone manufacturer ever offered any watch integration API? Would that make all of the others (who don't offer an API) anti-competitive? Or would they just have a worse value proposition for their products?
I can't believe this is the hill I'm going to die on- I'm not really an Apple fanboy, and I don't like some of the things they do (like 30% App Store fees or core technology fees in Europe). But I really don't see how Apple not opening up access to their phone constitutes anti-competitive practice. Companies are not obligated to deliver privileged access to their products. It's not a right you have to build a product off of someone else's product. The fact that they have opened up access in some categories does not make it anti-competitive that they didn't open up access in all categories. So many products are closed off in so many categories, why are we complaining about this time?
> They also don't make the Apple Watch compatible with Android, so they are also giving up their own access to a huge chunk of potential buyers (70% of worldwide smartphone users are on Android). So maybe we're missing something.
If smartwatches were an essential part of everyday life for the majority of people on the planet (or in <insert legal jurisdiction here>) as smartphones are then I would want regulation mandating interoperability there as well. As it is they are a relatively niche product so if Apple wants to limit the watch to their phones then I'm fine with that as I don't see it being a very powerful market distortion in the other direction.
> In your view, what would happen if only one smart phone manufacturer ever offered any watch integration API? Would that make all of the others (who don't offer an API) anti-competitive?
Only if those others have significant market penetration such that their closed API has the effect of harming consumer choice considerably in the smartwatch market.
> Companies are not obligated to deliver privileged access to their products. It's not a right you have to build a product off of someone else's product.
If you mean in principle, then IMO a sane legal system should absolutely confer some limited right to, for instance, build and sell software and hardware that runs on or interfaces with Windows. If you mean in practice, then it is absolutely a subject of debate in both the EU under DMA and the US under antitrust law:
> Connected devices are a varied, large and commercially important group of products, including smartwatches, headphones and virtual reality headsets. Companies offering these products depend on effective interoperability with smartphones and their operating systems, such as iOS. The Commission intends to specify how Apple will provide effective interoperability with functionalities such as notifications, device pairing and connectivity.
Apple uses their dominant position in the smartphone market to exert leverage over the smartwatch market and block other companies' access to a huge chunk of potential smartwatch buyers. Reduced addressable market->reduced potential returns->reduced investment->worse products for everyone.
This same pattern hurts Apple users as well because Apple can reduce their investment, increase prices, or both, without worrying about being beaten on quality or price.
> Most people choose to buy iPhones knowing that only certain watch options work.
This statement would be true if iPhone had 0.1% or 99.9% marketshare and is on its own irrelevant to whether or not it should be regulated. The whole point of regulating companies with dominant market positions is that they have tools to force customers into sub-optimal outcomes regardless of whether or not the customer recognizes it beforehand.
> If Apple did something anticompetitive to keep Android options from being good, then you probably have a winnable legal case. But it seems like Google, Samsung, and the other Android players are losing on their own merits.
This ignores the dozens of Smartwatch companies that don't have a smartphone business to integrate with. In your view, what should Garmin have done if the major Android players blocked 3rd party feature parity from the beginning along with Apple? Would Garmin need to make their own smartphone and OS to compete for watch sales, or would their product just not exist? Would that be good or bad for the industry?