I still feel you are not forced to buy apple, so therefore the idea of an IOS monopoly does not hold water because every apple user has the choice of android which has alternative app stores.

Well, today. But let's say that we say "it's okay for a platform provider to not allow alternate app stores". Then, let's say that users do what I expect you'd want them to do -- choose Android as the "less walled garden" option, so they have access to alternate app stores. What happens if Google waits until they're well and entrenched, down the line, and then does what Apple's doing today? I mean, you're picking them based on what they're doing today. That doesn't mean that Google has any contractual obligation to provide you with the option of alternative app stores.

I guess maybe a market regulator could say "well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it".

Another issue is that my guess is that a number of people don't understand the future costs of their purchasing decisions. I suspect that a lot of people buying their first iPhone don't really have a handle on the specific policies (or potential future policies) of their platform vendor and its economic implications. I mean, yeah, I'm willing to place a certain onus of individual responsibility on people, but I bet that the typical person just doesn't have the information to make that call at the time that they're making it. Like, if I'm buying a particular Android phone, purchasing one doesn't lock me into that vendor down the line. I can say "I was unhappy with my experience with a Samsung phone" and get a phone from some other vendor next time I buy a phone There's pretty limite lock-in there, just to whatever phone-specific configuration the phone vendor sets up. But my platform decision has a very large amount of lock-in to that platform.

Alternatively, another work around which concedes to both of our points is allowing iPhones and android devices to run other os’, meaning a new company does not need to have the hardware and existing apple users can switch if they want.

That does help, in that it breaks the hardware-software vertical monopoly. But my bet is that being even an OS provider is something of a natural monopoly as well -- think of how sticky Microsoft's presence was on the desktop. So being able to extend one's presence as an OS provider to controlling retail for that platform is a pretty significant way to extend a vertical monopoly.

If an iOS user can run Android on their iPhone, yeah, they don't have to buy a new device...but they lose out on their iPhone app library, which along with UI familiarity is I think where the real barrier to switching is.