China's Great Firewall is known actively detect and block most VPN protocols and things like SSH tunneling. There are custom protocols designed to camouflage traffic, but they require apps (e.g. Shadowrocket for iOS) which are, surprise, unavailable on the Chinese App Store. IIRC the same sort of blocking also happens in Iran as well.
I'm not sure a country where they're forcing a company to take down apps would allow them to then get sued for the act of compliance being considered anti-competitive. Obviously whatever Apple does in a specific country can't be used to prove anti-competitiveness in another country since that country doesn't have jurisdiction.
Not quite sure I follow that logic. The point is an iphone can be configured to use a VPN (operated by anybody, not limited to Apple) without requiring the use of apps.
> The point is an iphone can be configured to use a VPN (operated by anybody, not limited to Apple) without requiring the use of apps
A very specific type of VPN, which is easily blocked.
I don't know if it's monopolistic as the comment you replied to says, but in the context of the thread, the build-in support doesn't fix the problem banning apps from the app store creates.
