> They don't prevent Apple from facing the same lawsuit or from being covered by the same judgement.

I thought Apple did face the same lawsuit, against the same plaintiff, and Apple won.

The core difference is Apple had a bench trial and Google let actual people decide in a jury trial, which is a lot harder to swindle with legal technicalities, and also much harder to overturn on appeal.

Better to say Apple failed to lose. The court explicitly left open the question as to whether they are a monopoly. They just didn't provide any meaningful injunctions as a result of that case.

>The court explicitly left open the question as to whether they are a monopoly.

Presumably because that's not a question that generally needs answered. A lot of people growing remembering microsoft getting sued have this flawed idea that monopoly always equals bad. There are plenty of legal monopolies, companies don't get in trouble until they start doing illegal stuff to keep their monopoly. A lot of areas naturally favor a monopoly, that's not illegal or necessarily bad.

> Would that be more "fair?"

Having the second ruling be consistent with the first? Following precedent? This is terrible for competition where two companies in the same market can live under different rules in the same jurisdiction.

Apple's monopoly is effectively blessed now.