> But when you have to do all of those things and more?
It would be completely insurmountable for one person, but distributing the load is what an economy is for. If all you had to do was make a competitive chip, and all I had to do was reimplement APIs, and all Joe Blow had to do was <X>... soon we'll have all the pieces.
> Oh, that's definitely a major issue.
It might even be the only issue. China could no doubt start dumping iPhone competitors on the US market tomorrow if the regulatory environment allowed it.
> I don't think you can escape iPhone Android duopoly in the short term.
You wouldn't need to, if regulations were removed, as you would just straight up copy the iPhone/Android devices. You'd become a true competitor, not be left trying to establish an entirely new parallel market.
But currently, true competition is illegal in this space. Police will be knocking down your doors if you so much as even consider thinking about competing – actually competing – with the iPhone. All you can do is kind create something that is sort of similar, but not really, and that's not going to fly in the marketplace. The market wants iPhones, not something that might passingly look like an iPhone if you squint hard enough, but is entirely different in almost every other way.
It would be completely insurmountable for one person, but distributing the load is what an economy is for. If all you had to do was make a competitive chip, and all I had to do was reimplement APIs, and all Joe Blow had to do was <X>... soon we'll have all the pieces.
> Oh, that's definitely a major issue.
It might even be the only issue. China could no doubt start dumping iPhone competitors on the US market tomorrow if the regulatory environment allowed it.