That Apple has market power, meaning that competitive forces are insufficient Processing services for in-app transactions (and thus avoid Apple’sĪs in many antitrust cases, the primary flashpoint is theīattle to define the relevant market. Own payment processing services, limiting developers’ ability to use other It also accuses Apple of unlawfully tying the App Store to Apple’s IPhone apps to be purchased and downloaded through its App Store rather thanĪllowing consumers to “sideload” apps via other app stores (such as Epic’s ownĪpp store). The company alleges that Apple violates antitrust law by requiring Either way, the court’s decision will likely cast a long shadow far beyond the present case.Īt base, Epic has challenged the App Store structure that allowsĪpple to collect a 30 percent commission on app sales and consumers’ in-app
#Epic vs apple software#
My sense is that Epic still faces an uphill battle to convince the court that the iPhone’s App Store is a market by itself, as opposed to one of many players in a wider market for software and games (which my colleague Mark Jamison has discussed). The dueling economists sharpened the pencil on the most important issue in the case: how the court should define the relevant market. But there seemed little testimony going to Epic’s core antitrust claims.Īll of that changed last week as the expert witnesses took the stand. The first several days yielded some embarrassing details about the companies involved - such as the fact that Epic is facing an investigation into child data privacy practices and that Microsoft loses money on Xbox console sales. Early in Epic Games’ antitrust suit against Apple, presiding Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers billed the dispute as a case at the “frontier edges of antitrust law.” But the trial began not with a bang but a whimper.