
“Privacy, from our point of view, is one of the most important issues of the century, and safety and security are the foundation that privacy is built upon,” Cook testified. Apple’s witnesses claimed that app developers like Epic benefited most from the iOS ecosystem because, in Schiller’s words, it lets them “unleash their visions around the world.”Īpple’s witnesses also portrayed the company as obsessed with safeguarding iPhone users’ information. He noted that it had grown from 500 apps at inception to more than 2 million now, hosting nearly half a trillion dollars of transactions annually. To justify its app store policies, Apple trotted out an all-star team of executives, including Cook (who was making his first appearance in litigation), Phil Schiller (Apple’s former head of marketing and the guy who invented the iPod click wheel), and Craig Federighi (the head of iOS). “One thing that has quite clearly come to light is how profitable the app store is for Apple, and as they are trying to wean themselves off the big profit margins coming from hardware, the app store is even more important to the continued success of Apple,” said Ederer.

According to Bloomberg, Apple’s commissions from the app store reached $22 billion in 2020. Steve Jobs once thought that the app store wouldn’t make any money, but it’s now one of Apple’s main sources of revenue. Through it all, Apple approached the case with a seriousness that underscored its significance to Apple’s reputation and bottom line. But after 10 minutes of the attorney tediously going through the apps and the witness confirming in a monotone voice that, yes, they were from the app store, the point had lost its punch. At one point last week, Epic’s attorney stood in front of an Apple executive, showing him screenshots of various sex-related searches she had done in her iPhone’s app store, with results like “Kinkoo,” “Fingering Secrets,” and “Sex Positions 3D.” Epic was trying to make the point that Apple allowed sexually explicit material on iPhones.

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The chaos began on the first day, when the court couldn’t figure out how to mute the public audio feed and several kids gate-crashed the opening arguments, yelling, “Free Fortnite.” (One fan even shouted, “I would suck all of you to get Fortnite mobile back.”) In the ensuing days, there were endless debates about the definition of a game and a comical digression about whether it would be appropriate to show a picture of a naked banana in federal court (in reference to the Peely character from Fortnite).
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But the trial often lapsed into farce and absurdity.
