Veteran Apple executive Matt Fischer who runs the day-to-day operations of the App Store will take the stand Thursday in the Epic Games v. Apple trial.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Matt Fischer will be the first Apple employee to take the witness stand as Epic, the creator of Fortnite, tries to convince a federal judge that the marketplace for apps that run on hundreds of millions of iPhones is operated like a monopoly. Trystan Kosmynka, a senior director at Apple in charge of the app review process, is set to be called to the stand later in the day.
Despite having a tenure with Apple of almost 20 years and being in charge of a business that’s estimated to generate more than $20 billion in revenue a year, Fischer keeps a low profile: He’s not featured on Apple’s website, he doesn’t appear at Apple product launch events and he rarely speaks publicly. He reports to Phil Schiller, the company’s top App Store executive, who is expected to be called as a witness later in the trial, along with Chief Executive Tim Cook.
Topics Fischer may be questioned about by Epic’s lawyers include App Store business strategy, finances, policies and practices, and market power over iOS devices, according to court filings. Kosmynka, who reports to Apple’s developer relations chief, will be asked about the app review process and App Store curation.
MacDailyNews Take: All Epic Games will accomplish with this trial is to make Apple even stronger.
Excuse me, I’d like to speak to the manager.
— Epic
Epic seeks to learn as much as possible about Apple’s MO.