In a recent interview with Toronto Star, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke on a wide variety of topics, from application tracking transparency to Apple’s ongoing legal battle over App Store policies with Fortnite Epic Games creator.
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In particular, Cook said that Epic Games’ desire for Apple to allow developers to offer their own in-app payment systems “would make the App Store a flea market”:
At the heart of Epic’s complaint is that it would like developers to each enter their payment information. But that would make the App Store a flea market and you will know the level of trust you have in the flea market.
The volume of people entering such a market would be dramatically lower, which would be bad for the user, because they would lose innovation as we just heard with the four developers. And developers would be left out because they would not have a huge audience to sell. So no one wins in that environment.
Apple’s app store review instructions require apps to use Apple’s in-app purchase system, with a ban on direct payment systems.
Cook said he is confident Apple should prevail in its lawsuit against Epic Games as long as it is able to communicate the facts clearly. The US bank trial is scheduled to begin on May 3 in federal court in northern California.
Cook also revealed in the interview that Apple analyzes 100,000 applications submitted for review each week and rejects about 40,000. He said that soon the App Store, users have “a safe and reliable place” to discover applications.
Timed with Cook’s interview with Toronto Star, Apple has issued a press release announcing the success of the App Store in Canada. In the press release, spotted by the blog iPhone in Canada, Apple said the App Store now accepts more than 243,000 jobs in Canada and added that developers across the country have generated more than $ 2 billion CAD in total revenue since the App Store launched in 2008.