What you need to know
- Tim Cook has finally weighed in on the Epic Games lawsuit ruling.
- He told Apple employees at an internal meeting that he thought the ruling would be "very good" to try and put some App Store discussion to rest.
- He also told employees he was looking forward to moving on.
Tim Cook has told Apple employees at an internal meeting that he hopes to move on from the Epic Games lawsuit, and said he hoped the verdict would put some questions about the App Store to rest.
In the wake of the iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, and iPad announcements earlier this week, Cook spoke to employees at an all-hands meeting. From The Verge:
"If you sort of back up and remember what the App Store is about, the App Store was built to be a trusted place for users so they could go explore and discover apps. It was meant to be a great business opportunity for developers," Cook told employees, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge.
Cook went on to say that Epic Games had come along and "basically to be handled in a special way" but that Apple's rules are that "we treat everyone the same". Cook continued:
"They ask us repeatedly to treat them different, we said no, and they sued us on 10 different items. The court ruled nine of those in favor of Apple and one in favor of Epic. Most importantly, they ruled that Apple is not a monopoly, which we've always known. Apple is in a fiercely competitive market."
Cook went on to say that he thought the ruling would "be very good to try to put some of the discussions to rest on the App Store" and that in terms of the ruling against the company, he downplayed the change and stated "there were one or two sentences scratched out of an agreement, that was the extent of it. I'm sort of looking forward to moving forward now."
Cook did not mention whether Apple plans to appeal against the one count it lost.
Epic Games has confirmed it plans to appeal the ruling against it. In its previous official statement Apple said:
Today the Court has affirmed what we've known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law. As the Court recognized 'success is not illegal.' Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business, and we believe customers and developers choose us because our products and services are the best in the world. We remain committed to ensuring the App Store is a safe and trusted marketplace that supports a thriving developer community and more than 2.1 million U.S. jobs, and where the rules apply equally to everyone.
