@Psymon
1) So should HP be slapped for not allowing Cannon printers to use their drivers and software? Should Kodak be allowed to spoof Sony's ID so that their cameras can operate as camcorder inputs into Sony's proprietary software? No. And here's the big one: Should PALM then not be forced to allow APPLE'S iPhone to sync with Palm Desktop!?!?! I'm sure Palm would have serious issue with that (as they DID prevent numerouscompetitors from doing just that!)
2) iTunes is not a market, its an application. A FREE application in a field of other FREE software that directly competes on features. Music is the market, and there's no lock-in with the music sold by Apple, it's not proprietary to their devices (even when it was, all one needed to do was rip to CD and back again, LEGALLY, and fully supported by Apple's EULA), iTunes plays any MP3 files, and any software that wants to can freely (again, supprtoed undedr the EULA) connect to the XML file and sync anything, including playlists, ratings, and more. iTunes actually isn't even so much an application, but a DRIVER, not at all different from the proprietary software that comes with your ATI video card, or an HP printer, that only works with their devce even though it does things very similar to other devices. This software was developed by Apple at their won cost. They HAVE a legitimate plug-in interface which can be cheaply licensed and used, and have provided free (no license) access to the XML file for anyone to access and use.
3) Music sales in iTunes, though massive, are not higer profit than the iPod segment of their business. iTunes REVENUE, yes, much higher, but the PROFIT is less, even more so when you strip out TV, Movie, and App purchases. Even the smallest iPod, the shuffle, costs only $26 to make out of it's $79 street price (about $62 wholesale), so a roughly $40 profit per unit sold... The Touch has closer to a $80 profit per unit and the iPhone more than $200. I'd not call a 30-60% profit margin "reduculously slim", in fact its quite HIGH considering the norm in the industry is only 15%... Apple, profits only pennies per track from music sales, and has often stated that the iTunes MUSIC store itself doesn't do much more than cover it's own costs, it exists to prop iPod sales. In the 5 year history, the store has only cleared 8.5 billion songs (as of Sept 2009), and at a profit of about $0.09 per song, that's less than $1B in total profit over 5 years. Apple profits nearly $2B anually, and it's no secret iPods out-profit Mac Sales. This CLEARLY demonstrates facts that prove the iTunes store can not possibly outprofit the iPod.
4) Even if Apple did have a Monopoly on the MUSIC market (not the music management application market, since there is no such thing) it is NOT illegal to BE a monopoly (they're actually not even #1 in the music market, btw). The government does not differentiate between physical and digital music sales as seperate markets, since no matter HOW a comsumer gets music, it can all go onto their computers and portable devices. Still, Apple has less than 70% of the total DEVICE sales for DIGITAL music. Even at 95%, the generally accepted monopoly mark, they'd not only have to acheive that goal, but they would actually have to USE that staus to ACTIVELY PREVENT other competitors from entering the market, or use their status to acheive monopoly rank in a different market segment.
5) Apple has provided more OSS than any of the other major firms, and has steered the industry to advance in numerous market segments. They've been part of more than a dozen standards groups and promoted USB, FireWire, 802.11, DisplayPort, ExpressCard, GCD, Darwin, various C++ extensions, WebKit, and many, many, many more. iTunes is a good program, which is why it's popular, and Apple PARTNERS with multiple companies for iTunes integration and offers support for syncing in multiple ways. They have done NOTHING to prevent Palm from writing their own integration, they have simply prevented Palm from doing so using an unsupported USB method that causes expenses on Apple's behalf to deal with code errors and device validation they've never before had to account for, and for Apple to take the rist that if they did NOT prevent this integration, that future updates would allienate potentially millions of iTunes users when their experienced support later broke with an update. If Apple makes it clear from the beginning that they do not support direct integration, then customers can't later be dissapointed.
iTunes is not a protocol, it's not a standard. It is an APPLICATION, used to manage, update, control firmware for, and report errors in Apple devices. It;s a driver suite. It happens to ALSO include a music management system, but that's just a fancy GUI backended by a FLAT FILE SYSTEM, and OPEN SOURCE XML DATABASES!!! IT IS FREE TO USE, IT IS NOT PROPRITARY, it just takes EFFORT on PALM'S side to use it.