A man leaves an Apple store in Beijing in 2019. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) A federal judge continued to press a prominent economist on his theory that Apple forecloses competition in the iOS app distribution market as he took the stand for a second day of questioning in Fortnite game maker Epic’s antitrust battle with the tech titan.
David Evans, chairman of Global Economics Group and Epic’s main economic expert, struggled at times to relay his granular points, even to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Evans testified that the App Store provides two products: app distribution services and an iOS in-app payment solutions. And he said that Apple is a monopolist that “has been able to increase the price for payment solutions by a significant amount.”
White House backs global anti-online extremism effort
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The U.S. is joining a key anti-online extremism pledge, signaling that the Biden administration will center social media platforms in its efforts to fight terrorism. MT exclusive: A new study commissioned by the National Association of Broadcasters finds that local broadcasters are on the losing end with major tech platforms, as they struggle to find meaningful ways to monetize content.
Apple antitrust trial kicks off with Tim Sweeney’s metaverse dreams
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Epic Games launched its courtroom war against Apple in an extremely on-brand way: with CEO Tim Sweeney describing the metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s novel
Snow Crash.
It’s “a real-time, computer-powered 3D entertainment and social medium in which real people would go into a 3D simulation together and have experiences of all sorts,” Sweeney explained to a courtroom partitioned by plastic barriers and a series of teleconferencing hotlines.
Sweeney called Fortnite ‘a phenomenon that transcends gaming’
The metaverse is Sweeney’s chosen metaphor for
Epic Games CEO cites Apple s total control over iPhones at first day of antitrust trial
By Stephen Nellis
Reuters
OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The chief executive of Fortnite creator Epic Games testified on Monday that he knew he was breaking Apple Inc s App Store rules by putting Epic s own in-app payment system into the game last year but wanted to highlight Apple s sway over the world s iPhone users, which now total 1 billion. I wanted the world to see that Apple exercises total control over all software on iOS, and it can use that control to deny users access to apps,” Tim Sweeney said from behind layers of plexiglass in a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, on the first day of an antitrust trial against Apple.
By Stephen Nellis OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The chief executive of Fortnite creator Epic Games testified on Monday that he knew he was breaking Apple Inc s App Store rules by putting Epic s own in-app payment system into the game last year but wanted to highlight Apple s sway over the world s iPhone users, which now total 1 billion. I wanted the world to see that Apple exercises total control over all software on iOS, and it can use that control to deny users access to apps, Tim Sweeney said from behind layers of plexiglass in a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, on the first day of an antitrust trial against Apple.