A hearing in the US Supreme Court was held on Monday that was highly anticipated among tech pundits and enthusiasts: it is the first session in the highest US court on a civil suit that has been going on since 2011, and which involves the alleged monopoly. Apple in selling apps for its mobile devices. The civil case, known as Pepper v. Apple claims that Apple has created a monopoly system that raises prices for users by forcing iPhone owners to buy apps exclusively on the official App Store and asking developers for a 30 percent share of the revenue. The first thing to keep in mind is that the Supreme Court will not rule on the merits of the matter, but will only have to decide whether the civil suit is legitimate, that is, whether Apple can be the target of a civil suit for this alleged violation. The problem to be solved, in practice, is whether Apple is right when it argues that under current US legislation, consumers can only sue for damages related to a monopoly of the market to those who sell the good directly to them: and according to Apple, this someone is. developers, because the App Store is only a third-party reseller. Instead, the civil suit claims that Apple has passed on hundreds of millions of dollars of additional costs on purchased products to users.
The American newspapers write that the first hearing does not seem to have gone very well for Apple, even if it is always premature to predict a sentence based on the questions and observations of the judges in the preliminary stages. In particular, writes NBC News, conservative judges seemed sympathetic to the consumers who filed the civil lawsuit, and wondered whether or not they should question the current legislation governing civil lawsuits for antitrust matters: the ambiguous one on the possible responsibility of Apple, which dates back to 1977. A final decision is expected to arrive at the end of June.
The central theme, explained Rhett Jones on the technology site Gizmodo, is that it seems quite reasonable to consider Apple as a direct seller of the iPhone apps, given that there is no alternative platform to the App Store. If it loses the case, Apple should probably gear up to allow the creation of alternative platforms, as Google already does with the Android operating system. It would be a huge change for the functioning of Apple, which with total control of the apps available for the iPhone has not only had economic advantages, but also security.
On Android, in fact, scams, data thefts and cyber attacks carried out through the spread of apps are much more frequent (it also happens with the App Store, but much less). Jones explains that he agrees with the principle that a user should have the device he purchased the way he wants, without the manufacturer dictating what he can and what he cannot install. But according to Jones, the alternative to the App Store is already there and is called Android, on which practically all the apps for the iPhone, original or copied, are available. Jones believes it is acceptable that, on mobile devices, Apple has the kind of control it has with the App Store: a drop in security standards would pose risks for everyone. To understand, a cyber attack carried out by violating an insecure system for managing security cameras, or in general an app of the so-called “internet of things”, can cause enormous damage.
But Jones also believes that, however it turns out, it will be good for users: even if in the end the civil suit should be authorized, and Apple should lose it, it will have to open the market to new platforms for the sale of the apps, and therefore the users will have an alternative. At the same time, however, it will try to keep users on the App Store making it even more secure.
