As iPod antitrust trial against Apple ends, jurors turn their attention to iTunes 7.0
The iPod antitrust trial against Apple is set to be concluded soon as the case has been sent to jurors. And as reported by The Wall Street Journal, the decade-long legal battle has “come down to a question of whether iTunes 7.0 was a product improvement or a clever attempt to suppress competition for its iPod music players.”
The $350 million class action lawsuit, which was filed in 2012 but only went to trial a couple of weeks ago, involves a class of customers who purchased early models of Apple’s iPod music player between September 2006 and March 2009. The plaintiffs accuse Apple of carrying out anticompetitive measures to lock in users to its iTunes ecosystem.
The trial, which included testimonies from the late Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs and a former iTunes engineer named Rod Schultz, earlier today saw the delivery of closing arguments from lawyers for either side to an eight-person jury in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California.
Now, it seems that the outcome of the case hinges upon whether the jurors find iTunes 7.0 (pictured above via MacLife) anticompetitive or not. The update notably introduced Cover Flow for scanning through album art and the ability to play movies on iTunes, along with so-called security improvements.
“Apple countered that it made genuine improvements with iTunes 7.0, released in 2006, and the additional security features that disabled rivals’ software were necessary,” the Journal reports. “Plaintiffs said that Apple’s changes were not improvements, and those changes made all other improvements irrelevant.”
Stay tuned as we’re sure to let you know of the result of the jury’s deliberation regarding iTunes 7.0 in particular and the iPod antitrust lawsuit in general.
See also: Bose set to take on Apple’s Beats and iTunes Radio with new music streaming service, Apple’s special holiday gift to employees is a customized Incase backpack, and Apple begins appeal of e-book ruling, $450 million in fines on the line.