Epic Games and Apple are in court for evidentiary hearings for the next couple of weeks over whether Apple violated the anti-steering injunction set down by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in 2021 after their landmark trial.
These hearings are going to be a lot of nitty-gritty details about App Store guidelines. Today, for example, involves a lot of questioning about buttons. (Apple restricts button styles for links that go outside of their in-app payment system.)
But this interjection, from Judge Rogers, doesn’t look good for Apple:
I can’t imagine a logical reason why Apple would demand that of competitor apps. What’s a logical competitive reason, not for suggesting it, but demanding it? ... Other than to stifle competition, I see no other answer. Can you give me one?
Nobody wants to opine on how a judge is going to rule — especially not based on a stray comment in an evidentiary hearing — but oof.
