Just so someone says it I hope everyone remembers Microsoft had a monopoly with Windows. Apple doesn't with the iPhone. The most optimistic estimate puts the number of iPhones sold by the end of 2009 at 45 million. Compare that to an estimated 4.3 billion cell phone users worldwide and 260 million U.S. users alone.
Including the iPhone in the 4.3 billion worldwide phones is like including PCs in electric typewriter sales; sure they can do some of the same things, but they're clearly different products.
> They have a monopoly on non-horrible smartphones
That's like saying, "Arby's has a monopoly on good-tasting fastfood." You can't have a monopoly on being the best at something. Just because you think that the iPhone is the best phone on the market doesn't mean that you can claim that Apple has a monopoly just because you don't like their competitor's products. (Well, you can -- freedom of speech and all -- but you're wrong)
There's nothing, certainly not any behavior by Apple, preventing anyone from coming up with an equally non-horrible smartphone. The closest they've come is by buying the quantity of flash memory they have.
