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"How do you compete with iOS without supporting iOS apps, iCloud, and iMessage blue bubbles?"

You build good alternatives for each of those.

That rarely works with monopolies.

Ask Microsoft, who tried developing Windows Mobile after the market was taken over by iOS and Android. Or who still tries competing with Chrome without much success, despite it being pushed on Windows as the default, with annoying settings and ads included. Nevermind that they gave up developing their own engine because they couldn't keep up.

Microsoft has been doing various flavors of mobile OS development since LONG before iOS or Android. The first release of Windows CE was back in 1996, roughly contemporary with PalmOS and Apple's NewtonOS.

Indeed, which makes their failure even more glaring, strengthening the argument that the mobile OS market is now an impenetrable duopoly.

Nokia and BlackBerry found that out as well.

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