In 2021, a federal judge ruled that Apple had to loosen its grip, ever so slightly, on the App Store. On Wednesday, nearly four years later, that same judge found that Apple deliberately failed to do so and tried to hide its noncompliance in the process. In a furious opinion, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that she wouldn’t give Apple a second chance to get it right: instead, she’s demanding specific changes to the App Store, ripping away Apple’s grip after years of unsubstantial alterations in response.
The ruling describes a deliberate process by which Apple sized up how to comply with the court’s original order, only to choose an anticompetitive option “at every step.”
In its 2021 legal battle with Epic Games, Apple won most of the case. But the company walked away from the trial with a court order mandating that developers be allowed to include links and buttons within their apps that would direct users to purchase methods outside the App Store - also known as the “anti-steering injunction.” Perhaps as a reflection of how well Apple had fared in court, the injunction did not strictly define what Apple could or could not do: it was vague enough that it left open a loophole …
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Stallman was right.
You must control what software runs on your hardware. It’s not Apple’s platform. It’s your computer. That’s what the money was for.
This walled garden should never have been tolerated. It was an abuse against users since before the App Store existed.
In court, Apple tried to argue that the term “scary” didn’t actually mean it wanted the screen to scare people. “Scary,” it claimed, was actually a “term of art” — an industry term with a specialized meaning. In fact, the company claimed, “scary” meant “raising awareness and caution.” The court did not buy it, saying the argument strained “common sense.”
“Your honor, we meant scary good!”
Trump supporter Tim Cook you mean?