U.S. House antitrust hearing with Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘likely’ to be postponed

Monday’s blockbuster congressional antitrust hearing with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Faceplant’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphaboogle’s Sundar Pichai is likely to be postponed, protocol reports, citing “two sources familiar with the matter.”

Emily Birnbaum for Protocol:

The hearing, which was set to be held by the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, could be postponed in order to allow lawmakers to attend a service for Rep. John Lewis… [who] died at age 80 on July 20.

Lewis will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, congressional leaders announced, and there will be an invite-only ceremony for him at 1:30 p.m. ET — an hour and a half after the hearing was supposed to start.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s a “Zoom” call, so it’s much easier to reschedule than an in-person appearance in D.C. Of course, Apple shouldn’t have to be at an antitrust hearing anyway (not having a monopoly in any market in which they participate negates monopoly abuse), but they have the most cash, so of course they’re “invited.”

Apple’s App Store provides developers a safe, secure, highly-lucrative distribution method to the richest personal computer, smartphone, and tablet demographics ever assembled.

Apple built the Mac. Apple built the iPhone. Apple built the iPad. Apple built the App Store. Apple created the most verdant ecosystem ever created for developers — by far. Only the losers and those developers who can’t read and follow simple rules are whining incessantly.

If anything, Apple takes too little of a cut for all that the App Store offers for developers.