Remember when AT&T (“Ma Bell”) was broken up (“Divestiture”) into a bunch of independent companies (regional bells, RBOCs, “Baby Bells”) as Bell Labs spun off into a set of companies? Yeah, the AT&T you see today is actually the largest of those RBOCs (PacBell) that went around and reacquired all of the other RBOCS and changed its name to AT&T (leaving the original AT&T using the name for its continuing backhaul/wholesale operation). Could Apple be forced to divest the App Store and also license other qualified app stores that come along to compete with it? —and that’s just what the courts can do to them. Those koolaide brewers also have drawn the wrath of Congress and angered the Executive Branch by not being so willing to drop a half trillion to setup shop in the desert midwest instead of southeast Asia.
No, it didn't. Verizon is modern Bell Atlantic and also went about buying up RBOCs. Your point is valid, they did just remonopolize, but it's not like AT&T is just AT&T again.
PacBell/Tel had two competitors for the seven dwarfs (RBOCs) that Judge Green created from MaBell, those competitors were GTE and Quest. GTE did pick up Bell Atlantic (and NYNEX) while Quest picked up US West. GTE then merged with Vodafone to become Verizon (and recently bought out Vodafone). Quest became CenturyLink. PacBell simply licensed the retail rights to the original AT&T name.
When the federal government breaks AppStore off of Apple and forces it to compete with qualified independent app stores, they will have learned from that fiasco and probably have language in the settlement (consent decree) that does not allow it to go around buying up the other app stores and eventually change its name back to Apple. Apple without AppStore will be a media company, since hardware sales aren't/can't be enough to sustain growth (unless we find a planet of aliens), especially if we are losing the Chinese market to another cold war.
Incidentally, there is another case precedent: Disney. There is a reason Disney no longer owns Grauman's/Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, its favorite venue --Disney/Paramount lost an antitrust case that prohibited them from owning both the means of production and the manner of distribution (sound familiar?); however, President Trump has recently terminated those 77 year old consent decrees meaning Disney can do what it wants now. Ironically, Disney might become a suitor for Apple's media business if it doesn't workout. For example, NASA and its contractors buy thousands of Macs from Apple but some phat idiot (won't name names) thinks it's a good idea to have an AppleTV+ series about "what if NASA didn't win the space race" wtaf?!
