Epic v. Apple, Day 12
“Product marketing works hand-in-hand with engineering on all of our projects,” Schiller explained. Different parts of Apple simply aren’t siloed into neat divisions; it’s one tight-knit company that makes a many-featured product.
That anecdote buttressed a more legally pertinent claim: because of this management system, Apple allegedly has no idea how much the App Store makes.
[…]
Where Epic has pointed out phrases like “lock-in” and seeking “stickiness” on iOS, Schiller emphasized that the “stickiness” involved trying to add features that would discourage phishing. “If there’s any plan here, it’s simply to come up with new features to help protect users from security and privacy scams.”
[…]
Cross-examination touched on topics like iMessage, but Epic’s counsel favored exhaustive readings of policies and lists that could show Apple in an unfavorable light, including every time it mentions relying on open source software and the search results for “BDSM” on the App Store.
Nick Statt (tweet):
Schmid was likely far underplaying the amount of revenue Apple earned from Fortnite’s mobile app, as court documents and independent analyst firms estimate the amount to be more in the range of $300 million to $350 million. It’s unclear why Schmid chose the $100 million figure when asked how much money Apple earned on commission from Fortnite through the App Store’s standard 30% cut.
Epic’s lawyer gets Schiller to admit there were no known security issues he’s aware of from downloading apps through the enterprise app program, which companies can use to sideload software on the iPhone.
Epic’s attorney raises one case of a company that had to remove in-app purchases of a sort: Amazon. Schiller says Amazon launched a store specifically to sell Kindle ebooks, because “they didn’t expect anyone to read books on an iPhone.” So it was considered an external purchase.
Amazon added support for reading ebooks within iOS, and Apple said Amazon had to either remove it and force people to only read on the Kindle again, or start giving Apple a commission on what had become an in-app purchase.
I don’t really agree with that narrative, given the sequence of events:
December 2008: Amazon introduces the Amazon.com app, which lets you make purchases from an iPhone.
March 2009: Amazon introduces the free Kindle app, which allows reading books on an iPhone.
June 2009: Apple introduces In-App Purchase with iOS 3. It is restricted to paid apps.
October 2009: Apple allows free apps to use IAP.
April 2010: Apple introduces iBooks, which takes advantage of private APIs both for reading and for purchasing.
February 2011: Apple starts telling developers that “from now on” they can no longer sell e-books except using IAP. They suddenly owe Apple 30%, which in many cases is more than their margin. Apple claims that this was the rule all along. It’s not technically practical for Kindle content to use IAP, even if Amazon wanted to.
- May 2011: iFlowReader goes out of business after three years of selling e-books without IAP because the new rule is “financially impossible.”
July 2011: Amazon is forced to remove the link from its Kindle app that let customers purchase e-books in Safari.
March 2012: Apple starts rejecting e-book submissions to iBooks for including Web links to Amazon.
August 2013: It’s revealed that Phil Schiller was concerned that Kindle content made it easier to switch to Android and that Steve Jobs suggested forcing Amazon to use IAP. This was in 2010, i.e. 18 months after the Kindle reader app had shipped.
July 2020: Tim Cook tells Congress: “In the more than a decade since the App Store debuted, we have never raised the commission or added a single fee” and that Apple has to follow the same rules for its apps as developers do.
Epic’s lawyer plays Schiller a clip of Scott Forstall’s deposition in which he reveals some apps were processing their own in-app payments prior to the launch of IAP in 2009.
Schiller says he doesn’t “agree” with Forstall’s testimony.
Agree w Adi and Nick - Schiller did a good job today, and Epic failed to figure out what story to tell with him
Horacio Gutierrez (via MacRumors):
There is a lot to admire about Apple, but my company, Spotify, has seen another, brutish side.
Previously:
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>Different parts of Apple simply aren’t siloed into neat divisions; it’s one tight-knit company that makes a many-featured product.
This sentence, is precisely why Apple's hypocrisy is on a whole other level unseen in any other tech company. Even the Do No Evil Google. Other companies get the benefits of doubt, including Microsoft and Google of not knowing what other department were doing. But not Apple.
Despite everything that is shown, and even email they known they are in the wrong doing, including anti-competitive, App Store Scam, they still think they are so righteous.
And EPIC, Jesus Christ I wish they get some better story teller.
