Apple CEO Tim Cook testified Friday in the anti-trust suit filed against the firm by Epic Games. The game-maker’s wildly popular Fortnite has 350 million registered users and over 133 million downloads on iOS.
The bench trial is being presided over by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers who will decide the case.
His testimony was done via call-in audio. Aggressively questioned about the iOS App Store, and Apple’s business practices Cook maintained his cool. He answered questions about competition, data, privacy, and China. When asked if he knew about the App’s store’s billion-dollar gaming streaming services, he says, “Somewhat; I’m not a gamer.”
Epic Games was trying to bypass the 30% fees Apple charges to game developers by updating the Fortnite iPhone app, so gamers could directly pay Epic. In response, Apple pulled Fortnite from the App Store. Then Epic launched a “FreeFortnite” ad campaign. And filed suit against Apple.
Apple CEO describes profit guessing game
Cook aggressively defended the App Store as an “economic miracle.” But he also insisted that the tech giant had no idea how much profit the store platform makes. And claims Apple has no idea how profitable it is. It’s not that they are trying to hide the numbers, by not releasing them…. they really don’t know how much it is making.