Apple’s default apps

The importance of software in Apple’s iPhone and iOS strategy has grown over time. In 2007, the iPhone had 17 pre-installed apps. By 2020 there were 38. And since the App Store launched in 2008, Apple has never let consumers set a third-party app as the default for certain functions – unlike Android or Windows, where third-party defaults are permitted.

For example, Google allows Android users to pick Firefox as their go-to browser relatively easily. Apple does not.

As Bloomberg noted, based on discussions with antitrust lawyers: “This sounds like Microsoft in the 90s. Back then, the U.S. sued Microsoft Corp. for trying to shut out other web browsers by bundling Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system and making it hard to install replacements.”

For the apps Apple does permit on the iOS App Store, it still forecloses fair competition by manipulating what the store shows consumers when they search. Apple suppresses search results for competing products, promotes its own apps, and makes it difficult for users to find and install quality replacements for its default apps.

Apple has used its exclusive control over the iOS App Store to promote its own default apps, including Mail, and to protect them from fair competition with other iOS apps, including BlueMail. It has done so by, among other things, suppressing the discovery of the highest-quality competing apps.