Until regulations steps in, and mandates to be more fair and open, or to break up the company, or to allow multiple app stores (by competitors).

At the end of the day, and iPad is a general computing device, and it will probably be treated as such in courts, where there are precedents on this.

a) There are no rules that mandate that a "general computing device" must be open in whatever arbitrary way you've not defined.

b) There are no precedents that state that a platform must have competing App Stores or make them freely available for anyone to publish. In fact the opposite is the default in companies today e.g. PSN, XBox, Tesla, Shopify, Salesforce.

If you have case law that contradicts this please by all means provide it.

Perhaps a case related to open source licensing? Here's one that's still in progress:

https://resources.whitesourcesoftware.com/blog-whitesource/t...

Of course, Apple had the foresight to purge GPL apps from its store:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3559990

What does it being a general computing device have to do with anything? Is it the only general computing device available? PC's and Androids exist, how is Apple in anyway a monopoly when they don't even have control of the market?

The are abusing a dominant position (as the only seller of iOS devices) to cross subsidise their software business and muscle out competitors in the services space (Apple Music vs other music services). That is a fairly clear breach of antitrust rules.

The prohibition of third party transactions or third party App stores are less clear to breach, but there is a case to be made...

Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, and Amazon music are all available on the App Store - they are not muscling any competitors out. If they were those apps would simply not be available.

And Apple markets the iPad and other various apple devices as general computing too.

And they operate within the legal framework of various jurisdictions, which can and will force Apple to change their behavior.

Yeah! Get that government boot on their necks!! /s

Yes, in fact, this is one of the reasons government was created.

Apple's marketcap exceeds the GDP of most countries, it's hard to feel sympathetic given its size.

https://www.investopedia.com/news/apple-now-bigger-these-5-t...

Even if this is true, the doublespeak of this being about protecting the user (as opposed to the shareholder) is tiring.