Cook bungled Apple’s control over the App Store

Apple, Google, and Facebook: Keeping the Web Spontaneously Out of the Public Interest: The Insights from an Internal Meeting Note after the Injunction

The judge wrote in her opinion that Apple knew it was the worst option for developers. Dropping all fees would “be very attractive to developers,” Apple believed, even if combined with heavy restrictions on how the web linking process would work. Gonzalez Rogers writes that Apple had expected a lot of large developers and small developers to offer link-out purchases to their users. It was expected that it would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

One set of internal meeting notes show that after the injunction came down, Apple began to figure out what changes it could make that would limit the ruling.

There were more restrictions that Apple would make, such as limiting text on the links. It decided to prevent certain developers with reduced commission rates from using the new web and link rules. It prevented developers from using links that would keep users in, because the company wanted to make it harder for them to leave.

Designers went about making fun of the thing that happens when a link is tapped. It considered multiple options: in one, would be a small pop-up alerting users that they’re about to open their web browser; in another, a full-screen warning would appear with big text reading, “Are you sure you want to continue?”

Apple chose to iterate on the full-screen option, with the goal of dissuading users from continuing on to the web. The pop up included a paragraph of text, and employees discussed using “scary” language to warn people off.

An employee at Apple was instructed to add the phrase “external website” to the screen by Rafael Onak, a user experience writing manager. Another employee gave a suggestion on how to make the screen “even worse” by using the developer’s name, rather than the app name. “ooh – keep going,” another Apple employee responded in Slack.

Even Cook got in on the action. When he finally saw the screen for approval, he asked that another warning be added to state that Apple’s privacy and security promises would no longer apply out on the web.

In court, Apple tried to argue that the term “scary” didn’t actually mean it wanted the screen to scare people. “Scary,” it claimed, was actually a “term of art” — an industry term with a specialized meaning. The company claimed that it was scary. meant “raising awareness and caution.” The court did not buy it, saying the argument strained “common sense.”

In 2021, a federal judge ruled that Apple had to loosen its grip, ever so slightly, on the App Store. The judge found that Apple tried to hide its noncompliance in the process after failing to do so in the past. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in her opinion that she wouldn’t give Apple a second chance to get it right, instead she wants specific changes to the App Store.

In its 2021 legal battle with Epic Games, Apple won most of the case. But the company walked away from the trial with a court order mandating that developers be allowed to include links and buttons within their apps that would direct users to purchase methods outside the App Store — also known as the “anti-steering injunction.” Perhaps as a reflection of how well Apple had fared in court, the injunction did not strictly define what Apple could or could not do: it was vague enough that it left open a loophole by which the company could continue to charge developers a fee on sales even when made over the web.

After that, it’s time for… more monopoly talk! Meta and Google are both still in court fighting to keep their companies intact. We’re learning a lot about how important TikTok has become, how Meta sees the world in general, and why it feared what might happen if Google bought WhatsApp. Just down the hall, at the DC district courthouse, there was a speech by the CEO of Search giant, who wanted the case to be the end of Search.

We discuss what just happened and why it matters. After some very important party speaker updates, Nilay, David, and The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes walk through Apple’s years of closed-door meetings about app commissions, and the ways in which Gonzalez Rogers found she’d been misled throughout the process. (Nilay also takes a victory lap on the whole “buttons and links” thing.) We talk about how developers are responding to the news, as well as what new things you might be able to buy in the App Store, which new apps might suddenly be possible, and whether Apple has any moves left in this case.