Citation needed. Do you have polls or other consumer research to back this claim?
There's almost nothing you can do on an iPhone that you can't on an Android. Conversely, there are plenty of things that the more open Android platform allows that iOS doesn't.
And yet, despite all of that, some people still prefer to buy iPhones. I think it's their choice to make.
I switched because the iPhone does what I need it to do, and then gets out of the way. It works as I need it to with my Mac, and is for the most part intuitive and well thought out. I would prefer it if I could install what I wanted from where I wanted, but it's a price I'm willing to pay. And no, allowing me to do so would not undermine any of the value I've pointed out.
I bought an iPhone _despite_ the restrictions, not because of them.
That’s a hard claim to make. The “just works”, “gets out of your way”, nature is very much helped by a closed and restrictive ecosystem.
1. This is false. There are plenty of features and apps (including my own apps!) that are exclusive to iPhone. iMessage and iCloud for example.
2. Products are not simply lists of features. There's also something important called design.
3. Don't forget vendor hardware support, software support, and resale value.
I can say, from a personal perspective, that I didn't buy an iPhone because it's vendor locked. I bought an iPhone because I'm a Mac user and developer, so I was already in the Apple ecosystem.
I suspect that there are a lot of people who buy an iPhone simply because their family and/or friends have iPhones already.
Essencial apps were made for Windows only back in 95-2005. Your only choice was emulation and there were no alternatives. It’s a completely different picture today.
2 and 3 are not relevant to monopoly claims.
Even with the insane idiotic second hand Apple device prices, the refurbish shops are still going broke every time they show up, so I doubt it as good as people say.
IOW, is there any evidence that if the apps that are currently unavailable on iOS became available on iOS, iPhone sales would drop?
To my surprise, many people had a similar questioning like you did in this thread, so it's probably not as obvious as I imagined.
