Thread by @thedextriarchy

Grant’s getting to give his definition of a console (as opposed to a PC/phone) now: "a single-purpose device for entertainment.”

A console vs. a smartphone: “Consoles will be located in a house, they have a power source, you will be interacting with a controller with a thumbstick and buttons…"

“...they will have the same characteristics as a PC where you are utilizing most of the performance, there are no concerns about battery life, and [light paraphrase: the features are more limited.]"

We’re now doing the same thing with tablets — tablets are more general-purpose, consoles are more single-purpose. Grant cites the Nintendo Switch as a mid-point that’s portable like a phone, but you use it with a controller that shapes interactions.

We’ve had a lot of people defining the differences between computing platforms here and it’s getting sort of repetitive, but given that Oracle v. Google involved an incredibly protracted discussion of the QWERTY keyboard as metaphor, honestly I’ll take it.

Grant is touching on some more of the benefits to native versus web apps; push notifications and ARKit both come up. The former is another example of Apple letting native apps reduce friction points — Epic needs to convince the judge these smaller features are meaningful.

Grant is explaining why you couldn’t make a game like Fortnite as an iOS web app, which I really hope somebody takes as a challenge now.

I’m not the best person to answer this, but the tech trials I’ve covered tend to hinge more on incredibly elaborate metaphors

https://twitter.com/jjaron/status/1390046486780596236

The human-readable versus machine-readable code bit is back now — Grant is talking about how web apps don’t go through the same kind of compilation process that increases processing efficiency, yet another reason they’re not as good as native apps.

Epic’s lawyer brings up progressive web apps, which have emerged over the past few years. “A progressive web app is really just a web app that attempts to appear even more app-like,” Grant says. “But ultimately it’s still executed by a web browser.”

This is, Grant reminds folks, a separate issue from the kind of latency issues that come up with game streaming.

Honestly despite all the “Have you heard of [x obvious thing]” setup questions (latest: “Have you heard of a ‘single-player game’?”), the testimony from all three days is parsing a bunch of incredibly complex questions about app development and the games industry.

I mean, I should maybe say “because of”, because Epic witnesses (who have dominated testimony so far) are putting a huge lift into making sure everything is explained as exhaustively as possible.

We’re moving to cross-examination. Lawyer is asking if Grant was involved in the process of submitting Fortnite to app review for iOS.

Grant said yes. Describes process that could take “under an hour,” could take “multiple business days.” Epic could ask for, and sometimes received, requests for expedition.

Lawyer asked if updates were rejected. Grant cites objections to "the way a certain feature was phrased in the app notes.” Includes Epic referring to an early feature as “experimental, tell us what you think” — "the app review team did not like that and asked us to change it."

Grant lists some more substantial change requests, based on changes to iOS. Epic had to support Sign In For Apple, a requirement Apple added in 2019 theverge.com/2019/6/3/18651…

At one point Apple changed how they budgeted memory, so “we had to significantly reduce the amount of memory that Fortnite required.”

Grant cites some more issues, judge breaks in as he’s listing them. “Why do you want to use Apple if it’s so terrible?”

A little back-and-forth, and the judge asks if bugs/issues are worse on Apple than Android. "How imperfect is it? … Is the experience comparable with Apple and Android, or is Apple just that much worse than Android?” Grant says it’s comparable, calls Apple engineers “great."

The nuance might not come through in a tweet, but the question is fairly shrewd — Epic’s in the process of complaining about a bunch of granular iOS screwups, and the judge asks how much is just the kind of bugs you deal with on any platform.

https://twitter.com/_ganderM/status/1390055166313963524

Sorry, screwed up a description earlier — cross-examination is starting *now.*

Apple is hitting on the iPhone as a tech product. Listing all the component/specs improvements to the iPhone since the App Store opened. “As a result of those consistent improvements … iOS devices are now capable of running games like Fortnite."

Procedural note: approximately zero chance we get to our first Apple witness today.

We’re talking about AR now. Apple lawyer mentions Microsoft is “working on” an AR version of Minecraft, which is sadly only true for another couple months theverge.com/2021/1/5/22215…

sad I don’t get to see all these binders getting passed around

Describing an email thread where Epic folks saw coverage of iPhone AR Minecraft, including articles at Kotaku and my own @verge. Said that “if it works like they say in the Verge article, it is very cool” and they wanted it in Fortnite.

I think this might be the Verge article, tho not 100% sure. theverge.com/2019/5/6/18524…

Apple is moving to one of its big talking points: Epic has developer agreements just like Apple does, on Unreal Engine and within Fortnite.

“People who cheat within Fortnite can be permanently banned, is that right?” (Grant says yes.) “People always find new way to cheat, and people get away with it until they’re caught. Is that fair?” (Yes.)

“Epic’s brand and Fortnite’s success is based on people having a good experience with Forntite, is that correct?” Apple lawyer asks. "Everyone is on the same level playing field."

“If the integrity of the game falls apart, and people believe the rules no longer apply to them, then people may no longer be inclined to play the game.” Epic’s reputation will suffer. The game will enter a “downward spiral.” Apple lawyers continue to have supervillain energy.

“Let’s talk about honesty. You knew you were being dishonest, didn’t you? You knew you were acting without integrity, weren’t you?”

(This is in reference to Epic secretly adding a payment system through the hotfix that got it kicked off the App Store.)

i mean what do you really, apple’s maybe one session away from a full-on hannibal lecter speech

https://twitter.com/Shannon_Liao/status/1390063956476272640

man, the hololens FOV controversy, good times

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1390064816274952198

Apple’s turning the “sony is tearing kids’ friendships apart email from Sweeney (introduced on Monday) back on Epic — says Epic’s doing the same thing by not taking third-party processing out of Fortnite and putting it back on the App Store.

Grant, psyche doubtless stripped to its bone by Apple’s lawyers, concludes his testimony.

We’re about at the end of the day — judge is going through some procedural questions about witnesses, noting that we’re regularly running behind with testimony. (We were supposed to get through two additional witnesses today.)

Result might be that some testimony gets submitted to court as deposition, rather than as questions in court. If you’re curious, we posted the full (tentative) list of witnesses for both sides here. We’ve got about two more weeks to cover them. theverge.com/2021/4/28/2240…

Day 3 of the trial is officially over. We’ll pick back up tomorrow, same time, hopefully with Epic and Apple execs on the stand. Now my cat ran off with an edamame husk while I was typing, so I’m gonna go hunt that down.