Rodgers is concerned Apple is still making it painful for folks to use anything but Apple's own payment system in iPhone apps, even though she's told Jobs’ Mob to sort it out and let people pay how they want.
The whole thing's about whether Apple's still nudging people to use its own payment setup, which—let's be honest—they make a tidy sum from, what with their 15- 30 per cent cut on everything you buy in the most popular apps.
During the court chinwag, which lasted for a good four hours, Judge Gonzalez Rogers didn't seem too chuffed with Matthew Fischer, the bloke who runs the iPhone app store. She reckons Apple is just trying to keep its profits safe rather than making it easier for us to use other payment methods as she wanted.
She really put Fischer on the spot, asking him if Apple's made it all confusing on purpose to keep people from using other ways to pay. "It's all about keeping the competition down, isn’t it?" she said, trying to understand why Apple's set it up like this.
Fischer's sticking to his guns, though. He says Apple is just obeying orders while also trying to keep the baddies off the internet and make a bit of money back on what it has invested in the app store and its software.
To be fair this whole “we need to charge an arm and a leg so our users are more secure” argument is getting old and rather transparent.
Apple's even devised a new way to take its cut, now asking for 12% to 27% on stuff you buy through other payment options. When the judge called them out for still raking it in, Fischer said it would work out to about 18 percent on average. “We've got to make a living, after all."
Apple has been trying to get out of this for over two years, but the Supreme Court is not having it. Since January, they've had to let app developers link to other payment options.
Fischer claims Apple only had 38 apps ask to use these other payment links, out of the 2 million or so iPhone apps in the States. And he couldn't even tell the judge how many of those actually sell stuff.
Epic Games, the lot behind Fortnite, reckon this shows Apple's still playing the system to keep things in their favour. They want Apple to open up more, but they didn't manage to convince the judge last year that Apple's app store is taking the mickey with its prices.
Facebook and Instagram's owner Meta, Elon Musk's X, Spotify, and Microsoft are all backing Epic. They say Apple's still squeezing developers for too much cash and stopping them from telling customers where they can get stuff cheaper.
Apple has none of it, though. They say Epic is just trying to get a free ride and not pay for using Apple's kit.
The court's going to have another go at this tomorrow when Phil Schiller from Apple is supposed to have his say. The judge wants it all wrapped up by 17 May, but she's warned it might drag on a bit longer.