God forbid. At least Microsoft didn't control our hardware. If Apple gets the same kind of monopole as Microsoft over computers, tablets and smartphones, they would basically control the entire field of technology.

As for the prices, people pirated Microsoft, which kept their prices pretty low (otherwise no one would buy it). With a monopole for hardware, Apple can dictate its prices (already very high) however it wants and people can either pay or go for the small non-integrated OSes.

That would be a nightmare.

And you'll be waiting a long time because their motivations aren't even remotely similar. You know what a monopolist does to competitors? It gives products away for free to bankrupt the competition. Or it buys the compeitor out and shitcans the entire operation.

Apple is sitting on $100B in cash. If it really wanted to it could do a lot of damage with that much cash (not even talking about equity or assets, just cash). But it doesn't, it selectively invests while the tech journalists write articles about what Apple should be doing with that money.

Why? Why wouldn't you want a company - any company - to do well, build great products, make their shareholders happy, and generally succeed?