Epic’s decision to bypass Apple’s App Store policies was dishonest, says judge
This hearing went really, really poorly for Epic. The judge repeatedly told Epic&#x27;s lawyers she wasn&#x27;t particularly persuaded by their arguments with regards to several key aspects of their case. Epic&#x27;s case hinges on being able to establish that Apple has a &quot;monopoly&quot; in the single-brand market of &quot;iOS app distribution&quot;. However, the judge seemed rather unconvinced that a market definition consisting of only iOS devices was actually the correct market to analyze. If Epic can&#x27;t establish that &quot;iOS app distribution&quot; is in fact a valid antitrust market, they&#x27;re going to have a lot of problems with their case, as both their section 1 (tying) claim and section 2 (monopoly maintenance) claim rely on that market definition.<p>As an aside, I&#x27;ve read a number of comments here lamenting that the judge doesn&#x27;t understand tech, but I think the opposite is true as well: many of the commenters here don&#x27;t understand the law. The judge needs to work within the framework of existing legal precedent when making her decisions, and unfortunately for Epic, it doesn&#x27;t really seem like existing precedent is on their side.<p>As a specific example, many of the comments here point out that smartphones are not like gaming consoles because smartphones are general-purpose computing devices whereas consoles are entertainment devices. Be that as it may, there&#x27;s nothing in US law that says general-purpose computing devices are supposed to be treated differently than other products for the purposes of antitrust analysis.