Apple vs Epic Games court proceedings: Days 13, 14

May 21, 2021

Craig Federighi, Apple's vice president of software engineering, has not hesitated to testify against the proliferation of malware on his Mac platform to compare the effectiveness of the centralized iOS App Store.

In the first half of the thirteenth day, Michael Schmid, the head of Apple's App Store game business development department, has been in office since 2017, so he is most familiar with the partnership between Apple and Epic Games. The two used to have a very close relationship. , at five o'clock, and even during the Christmas holidays, they will still contact work matters by phone.

Apple Schmid pointed out that Apple spent more than a million dollars on the marketing of "Fortnite" in the 11 months before it was removed from the shelves, but "Fortnite" also brought a lot of revenue to the App Store, with more than $100 million in commission income!

"Fortnite" has been submitted for review to the App Store for more than 200 updates, but in 2020, it has sent more than 80 emergency review requests. Apple internally believes that Epic Games is abusing this mechanism. Epic Games lawyer Lauren Moskowitz said that after passing the App Review, you still need to wait for the App Store to release updates to the player's device, which can take up to 24 hours or even 72 hours. Obviously Epic Games is very dissatisfied with this, because on home game consoles, the release Updates usually only take a few minutes.

The second half was Craig Federighi ( slideshow ), Apple's VP of software engineering, who pointed out that Apple sees the iPhone as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a secure platform, noting that centralized channels like the App Store ensure that bad actors will eventually be caught. Suspension. But Apple Federighi admitted that he did not participate in the birth process of the original iPhone and the App Store (Editor's Note: He only returned to Apple in 2009), took over iOS in 2012, but did not participate in App Review.

Apple's Federighi likens the Mac to a car that drives in any direction, so the user has some responsibility, and iOS is designed to be safe for kids to use.

(Editor's note: When Apple Steve Jobs released the iPad, he called it a "post-PC device." Later, Apple advertised the iPad as "your next computer." But looking back, it was just marketing. words, because the core of iOS product design has always been to treat the user as a child, rather than a vision for the next generation of computers.)

Apple's Federighi pointed out that the malware problem is serious on the Mac as well as the iOS enterprise app channel. The App Store is trusted by users to make money from reputable but lesser-known developers. If a third-party software store is opened, even if users only use the App Store to ensure security, the overall application software environment will still be quite different.

(Editor’s note: Suppose Facebook opens its own iOS software store and puts all its apps on the shelves exclusively, then it may indeed prevent Apple from reviewing and protecting user privacy through the centralized power of the App Store. However, such a situation will really happen. Facebook has never released its own Android software store, while Amazon has its own Android software store Amazon Appstore, but its apps are still listed on Google Play. Although Apple does effectively suppress malware, making it unavailable on the App Store , but also suppressed many innovative flames, making iOS development lose its forward-looking and become a reliable but conservative software environment.)

On the fourteenth day, several experts and scholars put forward various opinions, including: iOS users almost always use other devices (so it is not a monopoly, there are other competitors), Apple has multiple patents (so its innovation deserves commissions through IAP) , the centralized App Store can ensure iOS security, etc.

Refs:

Day 13

Day 14