Ok, I’m going to preface this by saying I don’t agree with the ethics of this, because I’ve been shot for just being the messenger in the past when I’ve spoken about this. That somehow by explaining the situation it means I’m sliding with Google or Apple. I am not.

But it’s because the case and the judge aren’t ruling on it from a Google > smartphone user POV (where Apple’s store is objectively even more of a monopoly than the Play Store).

They’re looking at it from a Google > phone OEM POV. Google effectively forces companies to use the play store, otherwise they can’t access Android functionality that has been shifted to play services, they don’t get to upstream patches to AOSP, they can’t access Google Apps (which are effectively required if you want to have people buy your device). Google enforces that OEMs don’t have alternative app stores set as the default. Etc.

Apple has no such equivalent. They aren’t forcing anything on OEMs, because they themselves are the OEM. If the only phones with a Play Store were Google’s own Pixel phones, the ruling would’ve went like Apple’s.

The case is about Google abusing their market position to push OEMs into using the Play Store. Not end users.