Accomplice to the success of the iPhone

Accomplice to the success of the iPhone and other smartphones in general, Apple iPods are becoming increasingly marginal, both in terms of the company's revenues for both the interest of its customers and yet a class action old 10 years is reporting current ones for a long time were the most popular digital music player in the world. The legal initiative was introduced in January 2005 and accuses Apple of violating antitrust laws some, cutting off competition from its iTunes program for the management and the purchase of music. The authors of the class action demanding 350 million compensation for damages, claiming that the choices of Apple behaved higher costs to be able to listen to music. The compensation could be tripled under the US antitrust laws.

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The lawsuit refers to the first years of existence of the iPod and iTunes, the program that is used to synchronize music between your computer and the same iPod. Following a strategy pursued for years with his Mac, Apple had thought of a very closed system that would allow the transfer of music on iPods exclusively through iTunes. The songs could be imported to iTunes from CDs purchased or purchased through the iTunes Store section of the program (which still exists).


Who had bought an iPod had not then alternatives to iTunes, but some companies like RealNetworks were busy to create software that could communicate equally with iPods to offer a different system to manage and sync music. Apple adjourned its systems to prevent it, explaining the choice with the need to make sure iTunes and iPod that would otherwise have been exposed to hacker attacks. According to the promoters of the class action, Apple limited the chances of choice for its customers and damaged the other interested companies to bring music on iPods.
The trial began Tuesday in Oakland, California, in front of the District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and a jury composed of eight people. During an interview before the hearing, one of the prosecutors said that "we will prove that these software updates were no updates in the strict sense of the term: Apple effected those changes to block the competition."
Among the materials that will be used during the trial there are also some email that the then CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs (who died in 2011), sent to several executives of the company. In one of the messages proposed to publish as soon as a press release in which Apple claimed to be "stunned" that RealNetworks had "adopted the tactics and behaviors by hackers to sneak in the iPod." According to another email, written by Eddy Cue, another Apple executive responsible for software, Jobs also said that "someone is trying to get into the house."
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On the story was picked up a deposition of Steve Jobs in April 2011. On that occasion he explained that "there are many hackers who want to try to get inside iTunes: we are trying for a long time, and they are still doing." The software update according to Apple was therefore necessary to protect the security of its systems and prevent intrusions by malicious users.
During the trial also showed that between 2007 and 2009, Apple found a way to erase the iPod songs downloaded from services for buying music competitors. Users were shown an error message if it were not taken music from iTunes, inviting them to restore music library program from Apple, which in fact led to the loss of the other songs. Augustin Farrugia, responsible for the security of Apple software, said during a hearing in the error message was not mentioned in the removal of the other music because it "did not want to confuse users."
Through these elements and on the basis of other evidence that will be presented during the hearings, the process will have to determine whether Apple violated antitrust laws by updating its systems in order to prevent unauthorized intrusion of any kind. Hearings attended, among others, the head of marketing Apple, Phil Schiller, and the same Cue. The trial is expected to last a couple of weeks.