By Stephen Nellis on May 24, 2021 10:21AM Disputes lucrative nature of locked down environment. Apple CEO Tim Cook told a court that threats to iPhone security and privacy required tight control of the App Store, which "Fortnite" game maker Epic Games says is a monopoly that Apple illegally abuses. The testimony constitutes Cook's most extensive public remarks on the App Store, which anchors Apple's US$53.8 billion (A$69.5 billion) services business, at a time when the company that once urged the world to 'think different' is criticized as too big and too powerful. Epic has waged a public relations and legal campaign, parodying Apple's iconic "1984" commercial and arguing that it acts anticompetitively by only allowing approved apps on the world's 1 billion iPhones and forcing developers to use Apple's in-app payment system which charges sales commissions of up to 30 percent.