Fundamentally I believe this should be an anti-trust violation. But then I think the whole "only allow your own software to run on your patented hardware (which you therefore have a government granted monopoly on)" should be an anti-trust violation too.
Taking it as a given that Apple has the right to control what software people run on the IPhones that they own. And taking it as a given that we have apparently decided aggressively deplatforming these people is the right action (which I also disagree with in general [1] - but my objection doesn't actually apply in this case). I'm not sure that I see why Apple controlling it's platform is different than reddit/facebook/twitter/youtube controlling their platform, and if there is no relevant distinction then this seems like reasonable corporate speech.
Historically, anti-trust authorities have been more concerned about horizontal integration, not vertical integration. On top of that, Apple is not even the largest phone maker in the US, owning around 13% market share. For an anti-trust suite to be successful, the prosecutor needs to prove consumer harm, and that will be hard in this case. (IANAL.)
There are actually two changes that would need to be made for my post to work.
First, that the law should acknowledge that Apple has 100% market share on every patented feature, and therefore they have a monopoly, not on smart phones, but on "smart phones with rounded corners" and numerous other design decisions and features that they have chosen to patent and gain a monopoly on. This is a change in how the relevant market is defined.
Second, that any prevention of competition in after markets should be illegal, not just prevention of competition in after markets that consumers weren't aware of when they bought the device.
Consumer harm here is trivial. That want to use an app, they cannot, that is harm.
(Ianal either, but spent a lot of time reading about this sort of issue)
Taking it as a given that Apple has the right to control what software people run on the IPhones that they own. And taking it as a given that we have apparently decided aggressively deplatforming these people is the right action (which I also disagree with in general [1] - but my objection doesn't actually apply in this case). I'm not sure that I see why Apple controlling it's platform is different than reddit/facebook/twitter/youtube controlling their platform, and if there is no relevant distinction then this seems like reasonable corporate speech.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25688130