doogald

Of course this is off topic, but that is not quite true, and this is what they were caught on. Windows95 when first launched did not include IE bundled. Shortly after (though it may have been on launch day - it's hard to believe that was 15 years ago now), Microsoft started selling the Windows 95 Plus Pack, which included IE. (If I am not mistaken, IE was downloadable for free at launch but only for subscribers to the new MSN dialup service.) It wasn't until later that Microsoft began to bundle IE in Windows.

That was their problem. In order to escape a possible antitrust trial, in 1994 Microsoft and the DOJ entered into a consent decree. Part of the agreement was that Microsoft was no longer able to bundle any product into a future OS. They were free to bundle new technology, but they were not able to, say, take Microsoft Office and start to bundle it for free in Windows (not that they would, of course.) Well, since IE was sold as part of the Plus pack, it was determined to be a product illegally bundled in the OS.

What is different about Apple and the iPhone OS from Microsoft and Windows95 is that Apple does not have a super majority market share; Apple is not under a consent decree that prohibits anything, as Microsoft was back in the 1990s with DOS and Windows. And I do not believe they are even bundling technology for free that they had previously charged for in iPhone OS. (Some of the other things that Microsoft did that were covered in the consent decree were that Microsoft was not allowed to force OEMs to pay per-processor licenses for each sale, even if a Microsoft OS was not preinstalled; they were not allowed to require OEM contracts for longer than one year; they were precluded from basing pricing contingent on the purchase of another Microsoft product.)