Apple holds edge in app store trial despite nagging issues

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Apple seems to be prevailing in an antitrust trial examining whether its mobile app store illegally skims profits from smaller companies.

But the tech giant's apparent edge comes at the cost of facing nagging questions about the financial vise it holds on people buying digital services on iPhones, iPads and iPods.

If nothing else, the skirmish has sharpened the focus on the exclusive payment system that Apple has built into transactions occurring within apps installed on its family of mobile devices.

Apple has collected a 15% to 30% commission on those in-app purchases for the past 13 years, fueling a moneymaking machine that has helped the company increase its market value from about $150 billion in 2008 to more than $2 trillion today.

Those apps avoid a commission when their customers pay for their services through other options, such as a web browser. But Apple forbids apps from posting any links or making any other suggestions that steer people toward those other alternatives.

The anti-steering provision prompted Epic Games, the maker of the popular video game Fortnite, to sue Apple last year and set the stage for the trial now approaching the end of its second week in an Oakland, California, courtroom.

To prevail, Epic will have to persuade U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers that Apple’s app store has become a monopoly that has enabled the Cupertino, California, company to engage in price gouging. That argument will likely require Gonzalez Rogers to embrace Epic’s contention that the iPhone’s software and the app store are large enough to represent a market by themselves.

That has been a tough case to make, largely because the same commission rates have long been charged by similar stores operated by the leading video game...