Rebecca Haw Allensworth: You don’t need to own an iPhone for the government lawsuit against Apple to benefit you

Last month, the Department of Justice filed its long-awaited antitrust suit against Apple, accusing the company of monopolizing the smartphone market. This makes Apple the last of the U.S.-based tech giants to face a major monopolization lawsuit from a federal agency. (Google also faces one from the Justice Department; Facebook and Amazon have been sued by the Federal Trade Commission.)

These suits make claims under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, an 1890 statute that makes it unlawful to obtain or maintain a large degree of market power through exclusionary and unfair practices. The government’s thoughtfully targeted case against Apple could, in the long term, give consumers substantially more choices when it comes to digital platforms.

In its complaint, the government makes a strong argument that Apple has used its market power over the iPhone to suppress competition through a two-pronged strategy: one, limit interoperability (i.e. compatibility) betwee...