The difference may be that Microsoft used the private APIs to give itself (and select partners) advantages over competitors while being a monopoly. I don't know if Apple is using those APIs to give themselves an advantage over competitors but they certainly are not a monopoly as Microsoft is.
As microsoft was. At this point in time I don't think that anybody would be able to present an argument to the effect that Microsoft is the dominant player in consumer or business computing. The number of devices not running a Microsoft OS is significant.
You cannot buy a laptop not running Windows, unless you go Apple (a very small percentage of laptops sold, and high-end only). Businesses universally use PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. If you work in industry or manufacturing, you may have noticed that the drivers for specialist equipment are always for Windows. "Industry Standard" software like 3ds Max only runs on Windows. Government still overwhelmingly uses Windows, which is why it's still "news" when somewhere switches to Linux (usually Berlin again). Healthcare uses Windows.
In the consumer OS space, nobody is even trying to compete with them commercially. The worst they have to worry about there is poor publicity from a lemon version of Windows, because no matter how crap it is all new computers will still ship with it.
> You cannot buy a laptop not running Windows, unless you go Apple (a very small percentage of laptops sold, and high-end only).
Or ChromeOS. Or more traditional Linux (a number of vendors sell them). Last I checked (though I haven't for a while) you could even get OS-free laptops on NewEgg.
At the time, there was only the desktop market and no mobile to speak of. Microsoft still dominates the desktop but how that figures into a monopoly calculation, I'm not sure.
Have you not seen google maps, amazon's kindle app, the many weather and stock apps, Instagram for taking and sharing photos? I can't think of a native app that doesn't have competition.
