1. True, but it has 30-40% of the mobile browsing market with something like 2% of the mobile browser market. The writing is on the wall here, nobody is making nokia versions of their websites, with the reduced price and global distribution of the new iPhone it's as good as done.

2. True, although, I won't argue it, but there's an irony in the thought that the iPhone's browser lock in is due to actually adhering to standards. :) Your point though is correct that anyone else could come along and do the same. It is interesting on the one hand to wonder why nobody has.

3. Also true. No argument here. :)

However, points 2 and 3 are not the definition of a monopoly. #2 is a benefit to maintaining the monopoly, but not a requirement – it is, admittedly difficult to maintain a monopoly without this. #3 is a common side effect of a monopoly but not an aspect of it.

My concern is not with the current state of Apple, I quite like all their products and as Robb says below, there's probably a good reason why that's so. But, things are still early on in Apple's ascendancy, their overall marketshare is still tiny, but I can already see the seeds of bad news coming and worry. Maybe the worry is too soon or unwarranted, but that's just me. :) I suspect we'll be seeing more reason #2's creeping in and sold to us as “better” in the not so distant future. I would, though, love to be very wrong on this front.

Bundling their software with hardware is a step Microsoft couldn't have taken but would have loved to, AppleTV, unsuccesful as it's been thus far. Right now because they don't suck they are getting away with a lot of stuff that Microsoft would never be able to do now. Will mobileme allow other forms of external syncing? It doesn't seem so from anything I've read, but maybe? I don't know, for now I'm just remaining suspicious, but the worry is definitely there.

Other platforms are a mess. They fail when you try to do new things because everything hasn't been thought through.

Point being this: This is what Apple had to do. No one else is doing it right. There are other OSes but they do not have a well thought out object model, a solid OO language underneath and the profoundly well wroung APIs that Apple has made. They waited and waited and no one did a good enough job. Adobe applications are a mess, MS's are worse. What are they supposed to do?

They use a ton of open API's though — the only things that are off limits are DRM-related. I just don't think that the other folks are keeping up. All the big brains are writing internet applications instead of desktop apps — isn't that what we've all been saying would happen?

Right now the reasons for going with Apple, for me at least, outweigh any for not – but I can see that changing. I've already switch to Amazon for all my mp3 downloads. Other than that though, I can not, apparently, give Steve enough money fast enough. :)

I don't know. I'm unconvinced. I mean, I get the stated reasons for creating such a closed system. The theory behind it is very nice. But, so many of the same criticisms leveled at Gates and Microsoft apply to Apple and Jobs, but people don't seem to be willing to make the connection.

I think a lot of it has to do with Jobs himself and the way he's created himself as a media figure. My favorite example of this is the FairPlay thing. Jobs gets up there and tells people the only reason they have the DRM is the labels require it, totally ignoring (or justifying aside) the fact that FairPlay content ties the user into Apple products. Perhaps there was a time when it was a requirement for the major labels, but with Amazon, Wal-Mart and Napster all offering DRM free music, that time has long since passed, yet the iTunes Music store still offers most of it's selections with DRM. Jobs makes a speech and everyone crowns hims as an anti-DRM crusader, but actions speak louder than words and Apple is still using DRM on 75% of what is sold at their store.

I like my iPhone, but it still chaffs my ass that there's a ton of things I could do with my iPaq that I still can't do with the iPhone. I've always seen Jobs as the gatekeeper to making that happen. Yet he's great at spinning these omissions as features, though I've never bought it.