The Epic question: how Google lost when Apple won

theverge.com:

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

Apple rules the iPhone’s App Store with an iron fist — sideloading outside it is not allowed. Google lets anyone install any app on an Android phone. But guess which one of these two companies has an illegal monopoly, according to the courts?

As you probably already know, Google is the one that lost its fight against Epic Games this week. It’s a fight that Apple previously (mostly) won in a similar trial in 2021, beating claims that it had violated antitrust laws by charging mandatory in-app transaction fees and kicking Epic’s game Fortnite off the App Store. Google tried a similar move, but in its case, a jury found it had maintained an unlawful monopoly with the Play store; a judge is scheduled to consider remedies next month.

Listening to the verdict live in the courtroom, I couldn’t believe my ears at first. Readers in our comments and around the internet felt the same.How could Epic have possibly won against the company that gives away its open-source operating system for free, especially after losing to that company’s more locked-down competitor?

Here’s my set of theories — which I spent half an hour discussing on The Vergecast this week.

The court made it clear from day one: Epic v. Google is a different case from Epic v. Apple, with different evidence, in front of a different judge. Nothing in the Apple case is directly relevant to the Google case — in fact, the judge barred both sides from even bringing it up. Google’s lawyers never got to argue to the jury that Apple won. Besides, Apple hasn’t quite won yet: we’re waiting for the Supreme