Apple publicly makes its case for the App Store

Apple has published a lengthy post explaining and extolling the App Store's guidelines and developer program, following the Supreme Court's decision in an antitrust case related to its application emporium. On May 13th, the Supreme Court has ruled against the tech giant in a long-standing price-fixing suit, which accuses the company of maintaining a monopoly over iOS app distribution to keep prices high and to be able to take a 30 percent commission.

The court's decision allows customers to proceed with a lawsuit against Apple under antitrust laws -- something the company argued shouldn't be allowed, because it takes its cut from developers and not consumers themselves. After the ruling was announced, Apple released a statement to stress that the "App Store is not a monopoly by any metric" and that "[d]evelopers set the price they want to charge for their app[s]." It added: "[The company] has no role in that."

Today, Cupertino has reiterated those sentiments in its post, stressing that 84 percent of the apps in its Store are free and that it doesn't always earn anything from them. The company even detailed the pricing tiers developers can choose from, which all state that it only takes a 30 percent cut from paid apps or from in-app purchases and subscriptions within free ones.

All those lead to the final part of the post, which highlights a line that says the App Store is "[a] store that welcomes competition." The tech giant listed its own apps (such as Apple Music and Maps) alongside their competitors (such as Spotify and Waze) available on the App Store. Perhaps as a way to say that while it's true that the iOS platform doesn't allow downloads from third-party services, users still have a lot of non-Apple options to choose from. Apple also reminded everyone in the post that all those options went through a rigorous review process to ensure "that apps are held to a high standard for privacy, security, and content..."

While the Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs in the antitrust case, that particular court battle is far from over, seeing as their victory only means they can proceed with a lawsuit. In its statement after the decision came out, Apple said it's "confident [it] will prevail when the facts are presented." The company's post likely gives us a glimpse of the "facts" it intends to present in court.