Thread by @thedextriarchy

New week, old trial: Day 11 of Epic v. Apple coming up in 5 minutes. More questions for computer science expert James Mickens. And then Apple exec Phil Schiller takes the stand. Last week below:

theverge.com/2021/5/14/2243…

https://twitter.com/thedextriarchy/status/1393219729918201856

Judge Rogers is welcoming people to the courtroom — we’ll be getting started soon.

Epic’s lawyer says it’s waiting to finalize on some documents and evidence. Counsel is also “super close” to an agreement with Apple on a back-and-forth wrap-up, which will serve as closing arguments. Everyone hopes this will happen next Monday.

Everybody really, really wants to be done on Monday — judge estimates that day’s back-and-forth will take maybe 1.5 hours per side.

Both sides still have issues with each other’s expert testimony — Apple and Epic want to strike parts of expert witnesses Susan Athey and Lorin Hitt.

Judge denies requests to strike — she says she’s still going to use her judgment to decide how to weigh each experts’ testimony.

We’re calling James Mickens back to the stand — Apple’s attorney is cross-examining him.

Apple’s laying in right away on Mickens’ claim that Android and iOS are “in the same rough equivalent class” of susceptibility to security risks. He’s getting Mickens to admit that he doesn’t have hard numbers on this.

Reminder if you’re catching up: Mickens was brought by Epic to testify that the App Store isn’t a major contributor to the security of iOS, compared to the operating system itself.

Apple asks if Mickens saw actual documentation or just “made assumptions about what Apple must be doing behind the scenes” on the App Store.

Mickens says no — he looked at the “lived experience” of developers and other info.

Apple lawyer says Mickens pointed out bad apps, but he didn’t look at how many overall apps Apple reviewed. “That’s not data you took into consideration, correct?”

“That data wasn’t relevant to my determination,” says Mickens.

Apple lawyer asks the same question about whether Mickens considered how many bad apps Apple rejected, not just ones that made it through the store. Again, Mickens says that wasn’t relevant to his analysis.

“Do you know what tools the app review process uses to ensure that apps don’t have legal compliance issues?” asks lawyer — mentioning an issue Mickens said last week was thorny.

“Not other than the general purpose computer science knowledge I mentioned,” says Mickens.

Lawyer asks if Mickens has any internal data about the App Store’s success rate for compliance.

“We can look at the empirical results of that review process and make observations,” says Mickens — so it’s not strictly necessary.

Apple’s lawyer is going hard on the argument that Mickens is basically cherry-picking App Store failures without having data on how often it succeeds.

Apple says this article, for instance, doesn’t give the actual volume of security problems on iOS/Android — just the fact that they have similar flaws. Mickens says, again, that he doesn’t need to know the scale to talk about the overall security issues.

https://twitter.com/mslopatto/status/1394315287143403526

Apple is bringing up a book by Jonathan Levin, an iOS security expert that Mickens cited. Quotes a line saying that "Apple’s application security is light years if not parsecs ahead of its peers.” Mickens notes it’s a 2013 quote.

Apple lawyer brings up an Android Fortnite installer security vulnerability. Mickens says Epic fixed it quickly. Lawyer jumps on this — says Mickens was quick to cut Epic slack, “but when it comes to Apple’s potential shortcomings, that was not relevant to your analysis."

Lawyer says if security is a cat-and-mouse game, Mickens just took “snapshots” of moments where the mouse temporarily wins.

“What you don’t take into account is how the cat responded to any of those circumstances. That was not relevant to your analysis.”

Mickens disagrees.

There’s some brief confusion over whether Apple is the cat or the mouse in the “cat and mouse” security analogy. (For the record, judge clarifies Apple is the cat.)

Mickens and the lawyer are discussing the market for security vulnerabilities — Mickens said Android vulnerabilities sold for more, implying Android was more secure (as the lawyer puts it)

https://twitter.com/leah_nylen/status/1394318670524989442

I can’t see the “periodic table-looking document” that is being shown in court, but apparently it is in this zerodium.com/program.html

Lawyer asks if his conclusion was that “iOS phones are now easier to compromise than Android phones, making iOS exploits less valuable.”

“Yes, that’s a reasonable interpretation of the data,” Mickens says.

Mickens says again he’s trying to establish that iOS and Android are roughly equivalent — i.e., not that iOS is necessarily worse, but that it’s not head-and-shoulders above Android in the way Apple suggests.

Now turning to macOS. Lawyer asks if he believes there are “different security considerations” for computers versus mobile devices.

“I do not,” Mickens says.

Lawyer reads from Jonathan Levin’s book — which says that mac OS X (and Linux) “remain healthy in part simply becuse they do not attract much attention to malware providers,” compared to Windows.

“I don’t fully agree with that analysis,” Mickens says.

“From the security perspective, that’s a difference without distinction,” says Mickens. He notes that Apple doesn’t promote macOS as secure simply because its market is smaller — “I think Apple certainly doesn’t think that way."

Once again, Apple lawyer asks if Mickens has “any data” specifically pointing that macOS is similarly secure to iOS. “The majority of evidence I looked at was the engineering and security of the two systems,” Mickens says.

A recurring theme from Apple is that Mickens looked at technical vulnerabilities in a vacuum without having any understanding of their scale or the human processes around them.

Apple’s going back to the payout charts for buying malware on different devices. He notes that traditional computer vulnerabilities sell for way less than mobile OS ones — by Mickens’ earlier logic, doesn’t that mean “iOS is treated as being more secure as macOS?"

For context, Apple basically said in its opening argument that macOS doesn’t need to be as secure as iOS because phones collect a unique amount of data and are vulnerable in unique ways (like people being more likely to leave it on a train.)

“We talked Star Wars, let’s talk Enterprise now.” Groaner from Apple’s lawyer here (riffing on the “parsec” quote earlier).

Apple’s moving to one of Mickens’ other points: that you can get apps onto iOS outside the App Store, through the enterprise program. Lawyer asks if he has any specific incidents of a business deliberately trying to put malware on its employees’ devices.

Mickens discusses Facebook using the enterprise program to distribute a tracking app — which led Apple to temporarily block access to the program theverge.com/2019/1/31/1820…

Mickens says he was just saying the enterprise program could be a “starting point” to talk about alternative models, not that people should be able to mass-distribute apps through that program.

Apple says OS on-device security can’t prevent apps that cause “mental and physical harm.” Mickens tries to distinguish between security and content moderation, but Apple’s lawyer pushes back.

Apple suggests on-device security can’t prevent scam/copycat apps, apps that tell teenagers to harm themselves, or apps that ask children for personal information.

Lawyer also says on-device security mechanisms can’t protect users and developers from false engagement (like fake reviews) on an app store. But “these are not in your view core security features?”

Mickens basically agrees.

Apple says (with some light ominous suspense setup) that Mickens’ report grouped all these apps under the umbrella of “quality assurance properties."

Apple is basically coming back again to the idea that Mickens treats “safety” as a matter of strict technical malware vulnerability, while Apple takes a lot more factors into account.

Mickens said in his report that there wasn’t a universal definition of these “quality assurance” factors. So, lawyer asks, does that mean “some of Apple’s things Apple looks for are rather arbitrary and capricious, in your view?”

“Kind of."

Mickens says he’s being taken out of context — that he’s just saying these issues are harder to pin down.

Apple’s lawyer asks: “If iOS app distribution were to be opened up to third parties and developers were given free rein to write apps that mentally or physically harm individuals,” they’d be able to run those on iOS, right?

Mickens says third-party app stores are still going to have standards.

Lawyer asks: if Apple doesn’t want pornographic apps on iOS, but a third-party app store wants to allow them, who should prevail?

“It’s a complex policy issue,” says Mickens — two sides would have to come to an agreement.

Lawyer ties this back to Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency (some more detail on that below). If a third-party app wants to track users, who should prevail?

“It’s a policy issue that once again the court would have to decide,” Mickens says.

theverge.com/2021/4/27/2240…

Mickens has said there could be middle ground. Judge steps in and asks if he’s discussed what this middle ground could look like — Mickens says no.

We’re going through the same line of questioning with piracy, then fake engagement — but Mickens says there’s “controversy” over how much protection Apple actually offers on the latter.

But, lawyer asks: “piracy, scam apps, and review fraud” are not security issues under Mickens’ definition?

Mickens agrees.

Lawyer asks: then why does your testimony say Apple failing to address these things is a security issue?

Mickens and the lawyer are now sort of splitting hairs about whether Mickens actually said this and if it’s being taken in the correct context and so forth, going back to his testimony.

Okay and now Judge Rogers is confused about whether Mickens has been saying the thing she thought he was saying in the testimony, based on his current interpretation of the thing Apple is saying he said. Fun times.

We have basically moved on without incident. Sigh of relief.

Apple is still going through what it sees as Mickens’ hypocrisy — claiming he treats things like scams as not security issues in technical analysis, but uses the existence of scam apps as an example of the App Store failing at security.

Epic’s lawyer is back up asking questions, going back to issue of whether Apple would have to host objectionable material (like pornography) with third-party stores. Judge steps in and asks if this was in Mickens’ original testimony or if “I’m getting something new."

They’ve identified a paragraph that is sort of related, so now Mickens is answering. Are there “engineering solutions” that would resolve these problems?

Mickens says yes — you could have a system where Apple would have full control over which third-party stores’ apps can be installed, or one where Apple has no say at all. There’s a “variety of different approaches” to locking down content like pornography.

Similarly Apple could scan for malware or particularly objectionable content before somebody can install a third-party app.

Epic’s lawyer takes the example of Sesame Street making its own app store for kids, as an example of third-party app stores that wouldn’t *want* to be free-for-alls. Mickens gives a similar hypothetical where Disney starts its own app store on iOS.

In all these situations, Mickens says Apple could still “turn off the spigot” and refuse to let apps install on the device if it decides it wants to block them.

The point is that there are a bunch of different technical ways Apple could relax its guidelines without totally giving up control of iOS.

We’re talking now about scalability issues — Mickens argues that third-party stores could put more resources overall to review, rather than funneling it all through the App Store and its team’s finite time.

Epic lawyer goes back to Apple attacking Mickens on the grounds that he didn’t have access to internal documents. Mickens says that external review of closed systems is standard for security reviews — cites Apple’s bug bounty program as an example.

Mickens: “Even Apple understands that one does not have to be an Apple employee to understand the security implications of Apple products.”

“I’m not claiming that an app review process … is ever going to be perfect,” Mickens says. He just concluded that if you allowed third-party stores, “we wouldn’t be punting on the security issues becuse the security issues are mostly enforced by the OS."

Apple’s lawyer is back — and countering Epic’s example of a Sesame Street store by bringing up Itch.io again. “You understand that both the Itch.ios of the world and the Sesame Streets of the world would both be able to distribute their apps on iOS."

Mickens says that’s his point, that Apple could decide to block one of those and not the other. He says whether they *can* or *do* this is up to the court to decide.

Now Apple’s lawyer has raised the specter of stores that are “far more extreme" than Itch.io.

Apple’s lawyer keeps trying to get Mickens to specifically say which stores should be allowed on the iPhone, and Mickens keeps saying that’s not his job.

Now Mickens is stepping down.

Epic has no more witnesses to call. (With some caveats, and obviously it will still cross-examine.)

And with that, Apple is calling Phil Schiller to the stand. @mslopatto says there is a great influx of binders. It is not my place to see them.

We’re going to have about 5 minutes of Schiller before a break. So Schiller is introducing himself: He’s been with Apple 30 years, currently an “Apple Fellow,” previously senior vice president of worldwide marketing. Was working on the App Store since the beginning.

Schiller briefly left Apple in the ‘90s right before Steve Jobs came back to the company and reorganized it. He’s describing pre-reorg Apple as being heavily siloed and near total failure. When Jobs came back, “he changed that structure completely."

Each business devision at Old Apple kept its own profit & loss statements. After that, “we became one P&L for the whole company.”

Were there benefits to this change?

“Yes. Many.” Schiller says “now we all work together on one team,” and they make decisions together.

We’re taking a break — be back with more Schiller at 1:35ET.

And we’re back. Phil Schiller is back. Everyone is back.

Lawyer is asking Schiller to explain why he as a marketer was part of the development of the original iPhone: “product marketing is involved from the very beginning,” Schiller says. The process of designing the iPhone started in 2004 — released in 2007.

Schiller says Apple was trying to innovate after the iPod — “we knew that one day people might start to put their music on their phones … we thought, if anyone was going to kill the iPod, we should do it ourselves.” Going through a little more iPhone history.

Now going over the challenges of an “advanced operating system” on a mobile device. But mac OS was “not appropriate at all.” It was very large, required a lot of compute power, wasn’t battery-efficient, didn’t support phone calls.

“What the team had to do was redesign the operating system. Start from scratch, strip it down, remove everything they could to make it work on a small device, and then build it up” to what an iPhone would need, Schiller says.

The “most important” aspect was security and privacy. “The idea of this new computing device in your pocket means it's capable of more new things. It’s going to store information around our life that we’re not used to having all the time in our pocket."

“The software is part of the product we’re making,” Schiller says. It’s a “very different business model” from companies that license operating systems to other devices.

“It’s been our experience that a company that licenses their operating system to other devices needs to support a wide range of vendor products: different chips, different screens, different designs."

“That’s not something that’s good or bad, it’s a different mode. But in our opinion it reduces the quality; it reduces the speed of innovation.” Because you need to be constantly responding to the needs of the companies you’re licensing to.

Schiller disagrees that there’s a phone duopoly — he says Apple has lots of competitors in the market.

“In what market?” judge asks.

“Mobile devices. Mobile phones,” Schiller says.

We’re getting a history of app stores now. Schiller traces early history of them back to Steam and to Handango — a cross-platform mobile app store.

There were no third-party apps when the iPhone launched. That was a deliberate decision: “We thought that we wanted to create an Apple experience with built-in native apps from Apple."

“The security and privacy risks of opening it up to other ... apps was too great and not something we could solve when we launched the iPhone, so instead we offered up the idea of web apps,” Schiller says. “There just wasn’t the time” to consider third-party tools.

Schiller says two things changed: We heard feedback from developers that they wanted to create native apps, and we saw users and developers “starting to try anyway” with jailbroken apps. “We saw this beginning of demand and quality and security risks on the iPhone."

Schiller is going down the dangers of jailbreaking — Apple can’t guarantee apps work, and it gives access to parts of the systems that developers shouldn’t have. “I think there were great risks to the iPhone when this started to happen."

Apple’s lawyer is bringing up an October 2007 announcement from Steve Jobs, saying there would be third-party development on the iPhone zdnet.com/article/jobs-w…

The initial SDK was a “tremendous” effort, says Schiller. “For the better part of a year, the entire software organization was working to create and document the APIs” and get them to work.

“We try more often to not announce software until we’re ready to release it to the world, at least in beta form directly to developers,” Schiller says. But this was different.

“As I mentioned, we were beginning to see jailbreaking and rogue app development without documented APIs happening, and we were very concerned that this would create unreliable, unstable devices."

Schiller notes the tradeoffs between opening the iPhone to third-party developers without compromising security and iPhone functionality.

We’re looking at some statements from Steve Jobs around the iPhone SDK launch, saying he wanted to make the App Store work for developers “big and small.” Schiller elaborates, saying he felt like other platforms at the time were focusing only on big developers.

Schiller says Apple always intended for the App Store to be the only way to get apps on the iPhone, and he says threats from bad actors have “only increased dramatically” since then.

Schiller contrasts the App Store from the iTunes Store — iTunes popularized the $0.99 song, but Apple decided “well, that model doesn’t work here” for apps, because of their variety. So it let developers set the price with a 30% commission, which Schiller says it’s never raised.

“Right from beginning we knew there would be many developers who just wante to distribute a free app,” says Schiller, but others wanted an “easy and secure” method for paying. At that point, those were the only two classes of developers.

Schiller says developers didn’t have to pay fees for credit cards, hosting, etc.

“Did they pay for the SDKs?” judge asks.

Schiller says there’s a free program for in-house and enterprise, and then there’s a $99 cost otherwise. “I’m just talking about all the engineering Apple does, we don’t charge them for our engineering work,” he says.

Now Apple’s bringing up something Epic has raised many times during this trial: a statement where Steve Jobs said he didn’t expect the App Store to do more than break even.

“Did Apple ever promise that it would not make money?” lawyer asks.

No, says Schiller.

Schiller says launching the App Store was a huge risk — Apple was “taking our hot new product and putting something we’d never done before on it.” They had no idea if they were going to make money.

Schiller says Apple didn’t run a forecast of how much it expected to make from the App Store — he knows because he’s the one who would have been responsible for doing it.

Lawyer asks, did Apple hope the App Store would make money?

“Of course we did,” Schiller says.

Apple bringing up what Epic has claimed is a promise to not make more than $1 billion per year from the App Store — suggesting it lower commission rates after that point. Apple reads the email that contains it.

Schiller says when he sent that email, he was “spurring conversation” — keeping in mind that there would be App Store competitors and Apple might want to come up with new ways to compete. (In other words, although he doesn’t explicitly say this, it was never a firm commitment.)

Does Apple have competition for app stores? Yes: Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon Appstore, Microsoft stores, and game consoles. “I consider them competitors as well,” Schiller says of Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.

“We think that a user is going to consider these different places” when they’re considering where to get their games, Schiller says. Note that he’s specifically saying “games” here, which is the scope Apple’s been trying to set while Epic pushes for the suit to cover all apps.

no firm rule on unspeakable apps

https://twitter.com/mslopatto/status/1394356667043618816

Apple lawyer is now going back to “the plan” — what Epic claims is an orchestrated plan to build an iOS walled garden and lock people into it.

Looking at an email between Schiller and Scott Forstall from 2007. Forstall had worked on Yahoo email integration, and a Yahoo exec had asked Forstall if they would consider its widget APIs as part of the iPhone software stack.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea at all,” Schiller says — they were weeks away from announcing a strategy, and “this is not part of that idea at all, and not what we were going to launch."

Allowing Yahoo’s API would be “the same as throwing out the whole plan we have in place,” the email reads. Lawyer asks: what was the plan?

“To have an SDK and an app store and review all apps and make sure they were [secure],” Schiller says.

Schiller denies that “the plan” here referred to a monopolistic plot, as Epic has characterized it.

Looking at another document — a developer agreement. Schiller says developers didn’t have to pay just to access its tools, and over 30 million developers have entered the developer agreement.

Terms of contract are standardized for large/small developers alike, Schiller says — big developers can’t negotiate a better deal. There is a program that lets developers get access to additional tools like Apple Wallet, Testflight, etc.

Schiller notes that the Apple Developer Program Licensing Agreement has a $99 flat annual fee. “When we looked at the previous program … which was upward of $3,500, we wanted to remove that barrier.” (compared to an older developer program.)

Apple concluded that they wanted to set a barrier for developers to prove “it’s important enough that you will spend $99” — if you aren’t, “are you really serious about making a quality app on the store”?

The charge is waived for nonprofit/education/government institutions.

Zooming out, Apple’s going over all the ways it sees itself as pro-developer — with terms like the ones above and also events like WWDC.

Schiller’s going over the explanation Apple has given before for why it doesn’t take a commission on physical goods: it can’t guarantee they actually arrive. (This logic goes for things like Lyft/Uber as well, per earlier discussion.)

Looking at a 2008 slide deck and email — after the App Store is up and running. It outlines the commerce models of Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation. “Because in our mind these are competitive stores for games,” says Schiller, and they hoped to offer similar features.

At this time, “download and install” was the only model Apple had for its store. But paying upfront is “limiting in what you can do to create user experiences,” says Schiller.

At this time, more games were starting to offer in-app payments. App Store couldn’t do this, though.

“Some were doing it on other stores. No one was doing it on ours,” Schiller clarifies in response to a question from the judge.

The deck references Rock Band 2 as an example of something that allowed for in-game purchases.

Apple also didn’t allow subscriptions or in-app commerce. Developers told Apple that if they introduced features like in-app purchases, "it would put us into a leadership position for an app store."

“I think it was important to many developers, particularly small developers,” Schiller says of in-app purchase systems. Lawyer notes that Epic is a very large company.

Judge has asked if the man behind this slide, Ron Okamoto, will be testifying — but he just retired, so we won’t be hearing from him. theverge.com/2021/3/22/2234…

Apple looked at developer requests and began engineering a set of APIs and capabilities that plug into App Store for in-app purchases and then subscriptions, Schiller says.

You can check out the presentation here:

https://twitter.com/leah_nylen/status/1394365995641417737

Schiller citing a stat that over 800 million App Store apps were downloaded after 1 year. Number appears to have been reported here in 2009: venturebeat.com/2009/03/17/app…

What resources went into building IAP?

“It took work from our software engineering team to create the APIs and support it within our toolkits, and it took work from the App Store team to build a store component.” None of this cost was charged to the App Store.

What % of game apps use freemium model in the App Store?

17%, says Schiller.

Approximately 75% are free.

About 6% are paid, and the rest are “paymium” or subscription.

Judge asks for clarification and Schiller confirms this is just games, not apps.

(Paymium is paid but it has more purchases inside it.)

Schiller describes Apple having a “commerce engine” that all developers go through. They want to make sure transaction/download process has some kind of oversight, even if an app is free.

Is IAP a product, lawyer asks?

“It is not,” Schiller says.

Then what is it?

“It is a feature for our commerce engine on the App Store."

The implication is, this isn’t something you can separate out of the App Store or iOS and offer a competitor for — which is what Epic wants to do and argues should happen.

“Do the IAP APIs interact with any fraud checks?” lawyer asks.

Schiller says Apple has a fraudulent transaction check with it, but really I just wanted to note the tongue-twister of “IAP API” here.

Apple’s scans rely on machine learning, Schiller says, and that benefits from having a large data set. “There are things you can’t see unless you see a large number of transactions."

Apple lawyer asks Schiller to speculate on what would happen if that data set was split over many third-party stores. Epic successfully objects, but it’s pretty clearly an answer to Mickens’ claim that allowing third-party stores could improve review.

Schiller talks about how Apple is trying to help developers deal with refunds better — which is something Epic has said is a big pain point for app makers who have to use Apple’s payment system.

Schiller is going back to testimony from one of Epic’s witnesses, who talked unfavorably about the process of having to manage a newspaper subscription on iOS when you switch to an Android phone, for instance.

“What happens next is up to the developer,” Schiller says. Developers can choose to transfer your subscription, or you can cancel your old subscription and start a new one. (This is basically what Epic’s witness said — she just presented it as inconvenient and Schiller doesn’t.)

We’re now discussing the “video partner program” that offers members a lower streaming commission if they integrate with Apple TV. appleinsider.com/articles/20/09…

The rules for this program are different from the rest of the App Store, but Schiller says it’s open to “any developer who chooses to be in that business,” not just big developers.

We’re in a 40-minute recess — back at 4:15ET.

We’re back — Phil Schiller back on the stand.

Starting with Apple’s Small Business Program, which lowers the commission rate for smaller-revenue apps. When did that start?

“The original work started in 2016.”

When did it go into effect?

Started taking applications in December of 2020, the discount started January 2021.

The 2016 date matters because Apple actually announced the change well after it had been sued by Epic — it was easy to argue that it had only dropped its prices under legal pressure. theverge.com/2020/11/18/215…

Schiller says they considered programs that might help things like first-time app developers.

Why did the change happen then? “I thought it was time to just get it done and put it out there. Honestly, the #1 important [reason] to me personally was the pandemic,” Schiller says. “That was a personal motivation for getting it done.”

Was Epic’s lawsuit a factor?

“I would say it helped me get it done. I would absolutely agree it helped to get the program done,” Schiller says. "I wouldn’t say it’s why we did it, but it helped."

Schiller says the change took so long partly because the finance team was worried about fraud, developers trying to game the system, or money laundering.

“There were many concerns from our finance and anti-fraud teams about money laundering,” Schiller says. “The anti-fraud team was very worried about a commission level of anything lower than 15% for small businesses.”

(The commission got dropped to 15%.)

Schiller’s talking about app search ads — Epic’s Tim Sweeney complained that companies could place ads on search terms for their competitors. Schiller defines this as “conquesting” and says Apple had to actively decide whether to allow it.

Schiller says Apple decided conquesting was pro-competitive for smaller devs. “If a user is simply always searching for the biggest developer’s terms … then a small developer will not get exposure” unless they can advertise against those terms.

Schiller is now addressing anti-steering provisions that ban iOS developers from pointing to cheaper prices outside the iOS ecosystem. This has been a big sticking point at the trial so far. theverge.com/2021/5/11/2243…

Schiller compares its anti-steering rules to someone going to Nordstrom and looking at a pair of jeans — “you wouldn’t expect to see a tagline that says ‘Oh, you can go next door and buy them at Macy’s.’"

Apple’s lawyer and Schiller indicate that Apple bans “targeted, immediate post-purchase” emails to customers who signed up through the App Store. But it allows general advertising emails, says Schiller.

Apple is reading out a promo email Phil Schiller got from Epic after signing up for Fortnite through iOS, indicating that users could play on other platforms, and Schiller says there’s no problem with that in Apple’s rules.

“What if it said, if you go to Fortnite on your PC, you can buy VBucks at a cheaper rate. Would that violate it?” judge asks.

Schiller says it would be fine if Epic sent a blanket email to all users. “It’s just the targeting of the brand-new user that we helped them get."

“I thought I heard testimony that Apple doesn’t allow developers to have email addresses,” judge says.

“That’s not correct,” Schiller says.

Schiller says developers just need to ask users for their email addresses.

“We feel a responsibility for our customers to make the store safe,” and to make sure that all apps follow the rules. So Apple isn’t going to let developers perform their own app review. “It’s a critical [way] to make the store safe and fair."

So why doesn’t Apple allow “stores within a store”?

Schiller says the store’s apps wouldn’t have committed to Apple’s terms of service and guidelines. Moreover, "there would be no integration across our system,” he says, so things like parental controls wouldn’t work.

Itch.io gets another mention.

“Would having a store in Apple’s store such as Itch.io, would that be acceptable to Apple?” lawyer asks.

“No, for many reasons we’ve been describing,” Schiller says.

I’m not sure what the exact percentages are, but incidentally a *huge* portion of Itch.io videogames are browser-based, not downloadable apps. And there’s also a big tabletop genre that’s just selling PDFs.

Phil Schiller gets asked about Roblox, which you may remember Apple’s earlier witness said was not a game.

“In my opinion, it’s a game,” Schiller says.

Schiller: “Well, it’s a new type of app I think in the industry,” Schiller says. “It’s made up of multiple games, it’s not one game. And the idea of who creates them and what they’re for is a new phenomenon in our industry … it’s pretty new stuff."

Fun fact, Roblox actually renamed all its games to “experiences” a few days after Apple’s marketing VP said it was allowed on the store because its developers didn’t make games. theverge.com/2021/5/14/2243…

So wait, why is Roblox not a store-within-a-store? “It gets to a concept that’s pretty new: of creator versus developer. I understand that this is a little complicated."

“The developer of the Roblox app is the Roblox Corporation,” and they have to submit that app for review, Schiller says, so they’re taking responsibility for what’s on it.

“Roblox itself allows a class of users often called creators to create games within the Roblox app, and those are added to Roblox and they’re released as content within the app.”

To recap: Apple is okay with iOS apps that allow access to many games, but only if those games are created by creators and not developed by developers.

I’m not even going to try to explain this. I’m sorry. My brain is broken now.

Now that Phil Schiller has detonated the last two weeks of games discourse into smoking rubble, let’s talk about FEAR

https://twitter.com/mslopatto/status/1394395258352332800

Wait, lawyer wants to go back to Roblox: “Is all creator content in Roblox using tools and content that were approved through App Review?”

Schiller: “Yes.”

Lawyer: “And so that’s the Roblox architecture itself?”

Schiller: “Yes, it is."

Anyway Roblox aside, Schiller was asked about an email that complained Apple app review was “bringing a plastic butter knife to a gunfight.” Schiller tries to put it in context — was years ago, regarding a relatively small set of apps.

Schiller is talking about an App Store cleanup initiative that he spearheaded — says Apple has removed over 2 million apps cumulatively through it.

(To be clear: I understand Phil Schiller is basically trying to make a point about Roblox’s code being a known quantity and therefore the apps not posing a threat. But if you account for all the concerns Apple just raised about inappropriate content, it’s a huge can of worms.)

(Like every way you slice Roblox as an example of an acceptable thing for Apple’s App Store, you raise a bunch of questions about how it compares to xCloud or the Epic Games Store or some other banned service.)

Apple’s making an argument that switching isn’t nearly as difficult as Epic makes it out to be, and that in fact it’s gotten easier over the years

https://twitter.com/mslopatto/status/1394398815071858689

It’s interesting watching Apple and Epic analyze the cost of switching between devices citing documents from almost a decade ago

https://twitter.com/leah_nylen/status/1394401597845823494

Looking back to a 2010 email involving Steve Jobs, talking about the new space of cloud computing and a "Holy War with Google.” Jobs says Apple is in danger of holding onto an old paradigm of computing too long.

Apple was relying on a device-syncing-based “digital hub model” rather than a centralized cloud system. Instead the email proposed tying services together to “lock customers into our ecosystem."

Epic has characterized this as sinister, and Apple’s recasting it as being friendlier – trying to make service more attractive rather than making it literally hard for people to leave.

Jobs says Apple needs to make Apple’s ecosystem “even more sticky” — again, Epic characterizes this as sinister, Apple says it’s just promoting seamlessness. In 2011, “we didn’t have” seamless syncing of data across devices, and that put Apple behind Google and Microsoft.

“Mr. Schiller, are you a gamer?”

“I think so."

Phil Schiller says he games on home consoles, the iPhone, the iPad, Apple TV, and also he has a “dedicated VR auto racing rig.”

Lawyer asks Schiller if he’s familiar with Steam and considers it a competitor — Schiller says yes. (Epic says it isn’t.)

Apple lawyer asks about a recent Windows Store price drop, which Schiller says he read about in the press.

“You wouldn’t talk to your competitor directly about pricing, would you?”

“Never."

As far as I can tell this is a dig at Tim Sweeney, who emailed Microsoft around Project Liberty.

Worth noting again that Apple is keeping this very strictly focused on *gaming*, not computing/apps in general.

Schiller is talking about his discussions with Microsoft about xCloud. Schiller says he told Microsoft he would “love” to have xCloud on the service, as long as it followed its rules (which included submitting each game separately as a different app.)

“How is this different now from Netflix?” Judge asks Schiller.

Schiller says Netflix is just delivering a bunch of one specific type of content, which is video, and “we’re not reviewing the content, we’re reviewing the features of the app.” xCloud does “much more than videos.”

Schiller says “the App Store is not a movie store.” People don’t expect to search for an individual movie and find it, but they expect they can search for a game in the main App Store. “When you bring in games in a different way, it no longer works as designed as a game store."

Apple’s lawyer now asking Schiller about cool tech advances Apple has made with the iPhone, like sensors and the Retina display.

The Taptic Engine gets a shoutout — it’s what lets Apple hardware produce physical feedback without mechanical motion. theverge.com/circuitbreaker…

thinking back, pretty sure the taptic engine felt legitimately uncanny when i first tried it

A newer tech example: lidar, which lets you map spaces. Schiller says it’s useful for AR game development, and we’re going to get a short narrated demo now.

Were any costs for these advances allocated to the App Store, lawyer asks?

“No,” Schiller says.

Point is, for Apple, that this benefits App Store developers but isn’t factored into Apple’s App Store costs — rebutting Epic’s claims that it has a 70-80% operating margin on the App Store.

Schiller now walking the court through network development on iPhones, from EDGE -> GSM/CDMA -> 4G, then a little bit about 5G.

To Phil Schiller’s credit he doesn’t actually try to make 5G sound particularly exciting.

Epic previously argued that Apple benefited from general advances in computing, i.e. Moore’s Law and telecoms building faster networks. Apple is trying to show that the iPhone is specifically good because Apple put lots of work into it.

Apple is basically giving a product keynote in court, but lest you accuse it of self-promotion, keep in mind its lawyers devoted an entire morning to a detailed Fortnite demo.

Apple and Epic decided to do their court-explaining in very on-brand ways: Apple holds a product showcase and Epic calls Tim Sweeney to give a long speech about the Metaverse.

Apple’s whole argument is that you can’t separate the App Store from other elements of iOS. So when you put a game on the store, you’re getting all this tech as a package deal

https://twitter.com/leah_nylen/status/1394413624081502209

Apple’s bringing up its Metal graphics tech now — the thing it actually had Epic on stage to talk about at WWDC theverge.com/2021/5/4/22419…

We’ve got a clip here of Tim Sweeney showing up to talk about how awesome Metal is. Epic addressed this a bit in Sweeney’s testimony — it’s trying to thread the needle between “Apple makes great tech” and “Apple’s tech isn’t good enough to justify its restrictions."

Apple moves on to software features like ReplayKit — other things game developers benefit from, it says. developer.apple.com/documentation/…

Haha, we’re wrapping for the day, but the judge wants to know how Tim Sweeney (who sits in court every day) came up with the name for Fortnite.

Sweeney says that initially Fortnite had a day/night cycle, so the point was to build forts over the course of nights.

“I figured I had to ask,” judge says.

Judge Rogers: “Mr. Sweeney, you’ve been in this trial now for over a *fortnight*.”

*rimshot*

All right, and with that, we’re done with the day. We’ll be back for more Phil Schiller (seriously, guy is scheduled for 9+ hours of testimony) tomorrow.