> The testimony of Mr. Roman, Vice President of Finance, was replete with misdirection and outright lies. He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases. (May 2024 Tr. 266:22–267:11 (Roman).)
> Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024,
Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases:
> Q. And I take it that Apple decided to impose a 27 percent fee on linked purchases prior to January 16, 2024, correct? A. The decision was made that day.
> Q. It’s your testimony that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what -- what fee it’s going to impose on linked purchases? A. That is correct
> (May 2024 Tr. 202:12–18 (Roman).) Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business
So was Roman incompetent or just kissing ass hoping to become the President of Finance
chrisjj · 5h ago
> So was Roman incompetent or just kissing ass hoping to become the President of Finance
Why not both?
rdtsc · 5h ago
Well good point. I guess I was just trying to present it as he just lied because he thought it's not a big deal, as in he is incompetent enough to not understand in the kind of trouble he can be in. Or, he fully understood what deep shit he would be in, but it was a worthy risk to become Mr. Cook's personal favorite.
>Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly. The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation.
Judging by tech, apple is right now in deep water due to the failure of delivering apple intelligence and a major drop in software quality.
Judging by political positioning, cook’s donation to trump’s inauguration didn’t sit well with the fanbase.
Now, it seems Cook is going for shady behavior against judges.
Maybe it’s time for a major change of leadership. Financially they might be ok, but one can’t avoid the feeling they’re burning the furniture to heat the house.
janalsncm · 2h ago
I generally like Apple but this is not ok. It wouldn’t bother me at all if they put Tim Cook in prison for this.
If corporations are not bound by laws they don’t like, then why should they be protected by laws they do like? Should the US turn a blind eye to IP infringement against Apple?
crims0n · 7h ago
> Judging by political positioning, cook’s donation to trump’s inauguration didn’t sit well with the fanbase.
On the other hand, it may have saved his company billions on tariffs.
leptons · 3h ago
Oh you mean that guy "Tim Apple"? Trump doesn't even know his name, and I doubt Apple will get much for their tithing.
rad_gruchalski · 2h ago
Tim Apple. Sounds like a compliment to a CEO.
intothemild · 57m ago
Lately he's been rather sour... Like a Granny Smith.
Osiris · 5h ago
Given that the CFO encouraged Cook to violate the court order tells me that they calculated that
1. Any fines for not complying would be less than what they would lose by complying
2. That no individual would suffer any consequences for blatantly disobeying a court order.
In my opinion, the whole concept that a company can break the law but no human can be held responsible is insane.
I really hope that criminal charges are brought against those involved in making a conscious choice to both lie to the court and ignore the court order. Hopefully that will make other executives think twice when put in the same situation.
cogman10 · 5h ago
> I really hope that criminal charges are brought against those involved in making a conscious choice to both lie to the court and ignore the court order.
I do as well, but I have little hope that it will.
Prosecutors don't like prosecuting perjury. It's tricky to prosecute (particularly because of how close it is to the first amendment), takes a lot of time, and often it just ends up with a minor slap on the wrist. I've seen other cases with outrageous perjury that resulted in no criminal prosecution.
This is a broken part of the justice system. Particularly because these apple execs have the money and lawyers to drag out any prosecution until everyone involved is dead. But also because it relies on government prosecutors caring in the first place.
pton_xd · 2m ago
> 2. That no individual would suffer any consequences for blatantly disobeying a court order.
This is the real issue. Even if they're wrong about 1), they concluded there is no personal risk for at least trying.
And they are probably correct. As it stands, there is likely a greater personal risk to their "brand" and future employment by directly damaging Apple's finances through willful compliance. That is a huge problem and conflict of interest.
jmward01 · 1h ago
We have a lot of messed up rulings in the past that allow corporations to act like people but skate by when they do things as if they weren't people. I say if a corporation can have free speech like a person then they can get thrown in jail like a person too. When illegal stuff happens it should have real, meaningful, consequences like the board being fired and massive fines or outright closing the company. I am not a fan of the industry right now. Apple is a symptom of a broader problem and we need bigger changes to start correcting the direction corporate america has been heading for the last 50 years.
wiktor-k · 2h ago
> In my opinion, the whole concept that a company can break the law but no human can be held responsible is insane.
Wait, isn't the board personally liable for their decisions? I'm not a lawyer, obviously.
manquer · 2h ago
Not even when their product kills thousands or more and they knowingly took action that resulted in those deaths.
Perdue pharma is a high profile recent example of this , but there dozens of such events from big tobacco to baby formula
bix6 · 2h ago
Corps are separate legal entities so individuals are generally protected from personal liability. There can be exceptions in criminal and civil liability instances but even then there things like D&O. Until we stop giving corporations so much legal cover we’re hosed.
vkou · 4h ago
> Judging by political positioning, cook’s donation to trump’s inauguration didn’t sit well with the fanbase.
Objectively and ethically, it's reprehensible, but subjectively, we're now living in a blatantly pay-to-play world and everyone else is doing it, and there are clear, easily quantifiable gains of billions to be made from that bribe.
(The best part of all this was learning that inauguration bribes have been happening for decades, generally to little fanfare.)
floxy · 1h ago
>The best part of all this was learning that inauguration bribes have been happening for decades, generally to little fanfare.
Where can I read more about this?
test6554 · 6h ago
Apple might still appeal to a higher court and lean heavily on that donation to Trump for legal support. They as much as said they would appeal the decision.
nova22033 · 6h ago
Tim Cook is an operation guy. With Trump's trade war, operations is going to be even more important.
Molitor5901 · 8h ago
I think Apple has needed a change of leadership since day one of the Cook era. He may have been brilliant at logistics and putting products on shelves, but I think Apple innovation has flatlined under Cooke and if anything, the holier than thou arrogance of Apple in general has grown exponentially. Maybe it's time to breakup Apple - separate the computer and phone divisions.
mike-the-mikado · 3h ago
A more user friendly option would be to separate them into a hardware and a software company.
The hardware company would have to publish specs allowing anyone to offer operating systems running on Apple hardware.
mepian · 5h ago
>Maybe it's time to breakup Apple - separate the computer and phone divisions.
Who gets the Apple brand?
Reubachi · 2h ago
easily no question, ios would get apple naming convention. 85 percent of their revenue is from ios and connected services.
Which also means, "it's time to breakup apple" means nothing, not sure why OP suggested that as a method to punish a legally problematic CEO/board. they don't have a multisegment monopoly allowing them complete control over supply chains, or multi region monopoly on smartphones that would be effected by a breakup.
Tadpole9181 · 8h ago
A change of leadership? This is clear, obvious, undenied evidence of Tim Cook committing a criminal act. This is a crime. A coordinated, intentional, well-informed crime made in malice!
He should go to jail!
jobs_throwaway · 7h ago
100%. For any regular citizen this would obviously lead to jail time. Being Tim Cook shouldn't change that.
benoau · 5h ago
The funny thing is they have 2x consumer class actions (US + UK) alleging these 30% fees were always a ripoff, they just became a slam dunk so that’ll be tens of billions they have to pay back!
Reubachi · 2h ago
Genuine question as I'm seeing this sentiment a lot in these threads, and I must be missing something.
What you've just described would be the single greatest punishment to an entity in the (admittently recently established) history of case-law, would upend the tech sector (maybe justly), lay off 10s of thousands and effectively stop work at downstream supply chains.
I get that this is the point of the punishment. However, do you think politicians, investors, lawyers with controlling stake, The DOD with security integrations, would allow that to happen?
Put another way, do you think the rule of law exists for the hyper rich when the current admin put.....Linda McMahon on the presidents cabinet?
udev4096 · 7h ago
Cook is getting cooked
vjvjvjvjghv · 2h ago
I really, really, really hope this guy gets treated like very else under similar circumstances. Top execs are totally used to be able to buy their way out of problems with company money without any personal repercussions other than maybe a big severance package.
atoav · 1h ago
The argument for the high wages was always the "big responsibilty" the manegerial class has to bear. IMO to hold them personally liable is the absolite bare minimum, they already for the money for it. In reality CEO processes are often among the line: "You earned 10 Millions in boni for illegal behavior? Here is a 100K fine!"
A simple tradesperson is also personally responsible when they fuck up their job despite better knowledge. So if those can go to jail for the consequences of their dealings why shouldn't a CEO where the consequences are potentially of a scale several magnitudes higher? Wasn't personal responsibility in everybodies mouths, or is that only important when we talk about poor people?
Imustaskforhelp · 1h ago
I am not sure but it does seem that apple's stock price has taken a hit.
Maybe somebody could enlighten me but the off hours part shows -2.3%, is that a correction because people are losing faith in apple or what exactly? and would these off hours loses get converted to on hour losses or what exactly? (Sorry I could ask AI but I might as well ask here as well)
So I had done some calculations and please correct me if you think I am wrong but at 4:00 pm USA time (EDT?) the stock was selling at 213.5 open (I am not sure what the differences b/w open,close etc. are , I am not a finance guy) but it went from 213.5 open to 207.8 right now
Taking the % lose from its peak just at 4 PM EDT & multiplying it by its market cap? 3.19Trillion(1- 207.5/213.5 ) is 89_648_711_944 , ie. 89 Billion $.
So from my understanding Apple lost 89B $ in like a span of 2 hours (4PM EDT to 5:10-ish PM EDT which is the approx current time while writing this post)
That sounds REALLY BIG. Like I used to think damn Trillion $ are a lot but if such a case can cause apple to lose 89B$ in span of 2 hours then either I am doing some calculation wrong or this case has a truly big gravity that its worth not to just skim over it I guess and truly read it at detail I suppose.
Just my two cents..
TeaBrain · 1h ago
Bloomberg reported that the shares fell because their sales in China under-performed estimates.
Imustaskforhelp · 1h ago
By bloomberg, you mean bloomberg terminal or what exactly?
Thanks for this information. I was genuinely confused after I had written this comment because well this information of epic games was already available 8 hours earlier so that had already been factored in the market 2 hours ago so I was confused as to why this change in 2 hours.
Also, I would genuinely appreciate it if we could have a seperate HN thread just for this news itself. Sounds really interesting and I have quite an opinion on it
The headline sounds positive, but apparently its not positive enough to keep the stock from dropping.
Imustaskforhelp · 19m ago
wow, this has dropped even further it was around 2.5 last time , now its 3.7 , these are in some serious Billion dollar loses.
I don't know but seeing so much money move so fast with such high velocity and such corrections in minutes and thus losing or making billions. I really want stability and it does seem to me that in some sense I wish for every economy to be more comprised of small businesses which aren't changing their stock price in such drastic measures though I think such an opinion might be unpopular around here.
Since no one puts a reason down when they sell, it's all tea leaf reading.
TeaBrain · 46m ago
There's always a story that can be thrown together for every price movement, although it looks like apple did miss sales estimates in China by several percent. Looks like they also withheld guidance on services growth.
jacobgkau · 1h ago
> That sounds REALLY BIG. Like I used to think damn Trillion $ are a lot but if such a case can cause apple to lose 89B$ in span of 2 hours then either I am doing some calculation wrong or this case has a truly big gravity
The thing about a company worth several trillion dollars is that even minor movements involve (what are to us laymen) huge sums of money. Conversely, huge sums of money really are just minor movements to that company.
Some people talk about how the middle class has a hard time understanding the vast difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. The same thing applies (but probably compounded due to being at a larger scale) for thinking about billions vs. trillions of dollars.
(Just speaking to the question of scale; as someone else brought up, there've been other happenings that affect stock prices besides just this case.)
jagged-chisel · 55m ago
Apple didn’t lose money because their stock price dropped. All their shares out in the world lost that much value. The stock price has little, if any, affect on the company and its bank accounts.
Ah, but will there be any actual financial penalties against Apple to address the revenue they received as a result of this? Or would developers have to start their own cases to attempt to recover anything?
Osiris · 4h ago
The end of the order says that they are referring the issue to the DoJ for criminal charges, which is where a fine would be issued if found guilty.
Eddy_Viscosity2 · 9h ago
Will the executive actually face an criminal charges? No they will not.
jordanb · 9h ago
The upside is that executives are cowards (also there's no way in hell I'm going to prison for my employer and most people I know feel the same) so even one high profile successful prosecution will have enormous deterrance effect.
There is this despondent feeling among most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful and we watch the behave with ever more brazenness. The saving grace is the amount of pushback needed to put them back in line is very small. Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.
notyourwork · 9h ago
Generally I agree but I think the pushback needs to be a bit larger than you suggest.
Over the last 25 years, we’ve become more tolerant to larger leeway for those of certain societal status. A relatively large whiplash must happen to course correct the general behavior, in my opinion.
blooalien · 8h ago
> "A relatively large whiplash must happen to course correct the general behavior, in my opinion."
Indeed. Someone (or a couple few well-known someones) in positions of real "power" need to do some real prison time in a real prison for their massive lawbreaking and abuses of power before they'll take the situation somewhat seriously.
chipsrafferty · 8h ago
A LOT imo.
If you make it clear that even a little slip up of fraud will be at least 1 year in prison and huge fines, I think it would work wonders.
Tough on crime policies don't really work for petty crime, because people are desperate. But rich people have so much to lose that they wouldn't risk it.
mschuster91 · 7h ago
> But rich people have so much to lose that they wouldn't risk it.
Ponzi schemes are still a regular thing despite Madoff being sentenced to 150 years behind bars. They're just relabeled as "cryptocurrencies" these days.
heroprotagonist · 6h ago
> we’ve become more tolerant
We've become more powerless, you mean. The government has become more tolerant.
autoexec · 4h ago
> There is this despondent feeling among most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful
It's less of a feeling and more of a repeatedly demonstrated reality. It shouldn't be that way, but most of the time it is. I'd love for that to change, but I can't fault people for not expecting it to happen any time soon.
AlexandrB · 9h ago
I think cowards is the wrong word - more like opportunists. Like you said, almost no one wants to go to jail for "shareholder value" or a 10% bonus.
chrisjj · 5h ago
> almost no one wants to go to jail for "shareholder value" or a 10% bonus.
Almost no-one gets that choice.
The choose a risk of going to jail for a more likely bonus.
californical · 2h ago
But they don’t, because there is no risk. If there was, many wouldn’t take it
chrisjj · 56m ago
Many =/= all.
bluSCALE4 · 8h ago
The coward part was to stress his later point that they'll all fall in line like a herd of animals.
voakbasda · 8h ago
> Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.
I would wager that idea crossed the mind of Luigi Mangione.
It will take more than a slap on the hand from the court to change anything.
dylan604 · 8h ago
> most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful
gee, I wonder why! you now have POTUS openly defying the direct orders from the highest court. That's so much further past some corp executive committing a crime that hasn't even gone to trial yet.
mschuster91 · 7h ago
> Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.
We're seeing this with just how fast and ruthless many executives were after Trump won the election, actually. The behavior of some of these people is best described as "swearing fealty": donations to Trump's circle, dismantling of anything remotely smelling as "DEI" instead of standing up for what was sold as "core values" over the last years, compliance instead of resistance (just recently Bezos in the Amazon tariff pricing issue, or the "resignation" of 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens so that the Trump admin doesn't impede a corporate merger).
We've been asking ourselves "wtf are the Russian oligarchs doing" after Putin invaded Ukraine, and now we're seeing just the same compliance from our own oligarchs.
leptons · 3h ago
All they have to do is pony up $2 million and they can buy a pardon from a criminal president. Seems like a pretty easy problem to solve if you're rich like Apple execs.
chrisjj · 5h ago
> Will the executive actually face an criminal charges? No they will not.
How so?
thinkingtoilet · 4h ago
Rich people in America rarely face consequences for anything, even flagrantly lying under oath. I would bet good money no one faces any jail time, but I would be happy to be wrong.
chrisjj · 55m ago
Rarely =/= never.
Molitor5901 · 8h ago
and the 9th Circuit is almost certain to overturn this. Apple is a major employer, donor, etc. that I can't see this going all the way. I hope, but I am so jaded on the courts doing anything to actually hold companies and their executives responsible that I can't help but be pessimistic.
dataflow · 8h ago
Is there any reason to believe anyone will even get charged, let alone face trial, let alone convicted? And if so is there any reason to believe they won't be pardoned upon a conviction?
thrill · 7h ago
"is there any reason to believe they won't be pardoned"
Shortly after the next unexplained bull market in $TRUMP a pardon will appear along with direct links to their upcoming subscription service conveniently preloaded and un-delete-able from the iPhone Home Screen.
DaiPlusPlus · 8h ago
> And if so is there any reason to believe they won't be pardoned upon a conviction?
Given Apple's direct pushback against Trump's anti-"DEI" campaign, it's less likely than I might have thought - or maybe that's leverage? e.g. what if Trump promises to pardon Apple's executives if they remove the giant rainbow thingie from Apple Park and stop selling pride-related Apple watch straps?
coldpie · 8h ago
You are being distracted by the culture war sideshow. No war but the class war, and Apple's execs are definitely powerful enough players in that war to protect themselves from consequences.
afavour · 8h ago
It's not really a culture war sideshow it's a "buying favor with the administration" sideshow. And it does matter, Trump is not exactly a man with a strong loyalty streak. Demonstrating fealty to him on a regular basis could absolutely result in preferable outcomes for Apple.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 8h ago
This is a state case. Referral for criminal charges goes to a district attorney in Northern California. Trump's DOJ could try to lean on California but no one in California has any taste for Trump and his people.
dragonwriter · 7h ago
No, it is a federal case in the US District Court for the District of Northern California, and the referrals go to Pam Bondi’s DOJ.
You seem to have made the mistake of thinking that a news article saying “a judge in northern California" means “a State of California judge in the northern part of that state" rather than “a federal judge in the Northern California District Court”.
grogenaut · 7h ago
Have you been to the county of orange? San Francisco does not California make.
dragonwriter · 7h ago
Have you been to the county of Modoc? The urban coastal enclaves do not California make.
(I mean, sure, by population they mostly do, and are overwhelmingly Democratic, but if you are going to look for a county that goes against the partisan trend of the state, staying in the urban coastal enclaves and picking Orange is actually a fairly weak example.)
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 7h ago
I live in California. I know how red parts of the state are.
DaiPlusPlus · 7h ago
Bakersfield, amirite?
weaksauce · 7h ago
orange county is still pretty liberal just not quite as liberal as the other parts. huntington beach and newport beach is not all of orange.
dragonwriter · 7h ago
Orange often gets cited as the example of a Republican county in California because it is the highest population county that is pretty reliably Republican (it has a slight Republican registration edge, but more solidly votes Republican because it also has a Republican-favoring balance of independent-by-registratiom voters.)
But most of the Central Valley and the inland Northern California counties are much more Republican than Orange.
hedora · 7h ago
An Apple attorney is now head of the NLRB. The day they were appointed, they stopped three ongoing lawsuits against Apple (including the #appleToo anti-harassment class action suit):
Tim Cook is better at PR than Musk, but he's also a member of Trump's inner circle (why else would there be tariff carveouts that directly benefit Apple?):
Unlike Musk, the two were also close during Trump 1.0.
The rainbow thingy isn't a gay pride thing. The rainbow colors are out of order, just like in the original Apple logo.
jongjong · 18m ago
I wish the government took more steps to fix the monopolizing forces in the system instead of focusing on antitrust.
The way the monetary system is set up guarantees that market monopolies will occur. The monetary playing field is centralized and asymmetric. It's a basically a system of privilege and handicaps on a broad spectrum. Then people are surprised that those with more privileges keep winning predictably and form monopolies.
yalogin · 6h ago
Wow that is pretty damning. I understand that they want to protect their revenue, but looks like they screwed up here.
AtlasBarfed · 8h ago
My biggest takeaway out of this is Jim Jordan in the Senate trying to sneak through antitrust weakening.
From the "free market" party from a senator with at least some shame on the red aisle.
It really is open season for buying politicians.
cynicalpeace · 7h ago
Correct, but as the article states, it was the MAGA side that laid into him and made him pull it.
Steve Bannon has said many times he would've kept Lina Khan.
The populists are socially conservative but economically liberal in many respects (not all, obviously)
The top brass at Apple just think they are above everyone else. Remember when Tim Cook lied about Apple not giving anyone special terms in the app store and that everyone gets the same deal. And then it came out Netflix was one that got special terms?
The sheer arrogance of Apple leaders is astounding. They think they are outright owed rent on anything that runs on an iPhone, iPad, etc. Apple thinks developers are nothing without Apple. Look at how snubbing developers has worked out for the Apple Vision Pro. It was already a niche device, but it's a ghost town.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...
> The testimony of Mr. Roman, Vice President of Finance, was replete with misdirection and outright lies. He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases. (May 2024 Tr. 266:22–267:11 (Roman).)
> Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases:
> Q. And I take it that Apple decided to impose a 27 percent fee on linked purchases prior to January 16, 2024, correct? A. The decision was made that day.
> Q. It’s your testimony that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what -- what fee it’s going to impose on linked purchases? A. That is correct
> (May 2024 Tr. 202:12–18 (Roman).) Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business
So was Roman incompetent or just kissing ass hoping to become the President of Finance
Why not both?
Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145 - May 2025 (504 comments)
A senior Apple exec could be jailed in Epic case - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859814 - May 2025 (58 comments)
Judging by tech, apple is right now in deep water due to the failure of delivering apple intelligence and a major drop in software quality.
Judging by political positioning, cook’s donation to trump’s inauguration didn’t sit well with the fanbase.
Now, it seems Cook is going for shady behavior against judges.
Maybe it’s time for a major change of leadership. Financially they might be ok, but one can’t avoid the feeling they’re burning the furniture to heat the house.
If corporations are not bound by laws they don’t like, then why should they be protected by laws they do like? Should the US turn a blind eye to IP infringement against Apple?
On the other hand, it may have saved his company billions on tariffs.
1. Any fines for not complying would be less than what they would lose by complying
2. That no individual would suffer any consequences for blatantly disobeying a court order.
In my opinion, the whole concept that a company can break the law but no human can be held responsible is insane.
I really hope that criminal charges are brought against those involved in making a conscious choice to both lie to the court and ignore the court order. Hopefully that will make other executives think twice when put in the same situation.
I do as well, but I have little hope that it will.
Prosecutors don't like prosecuting perjury. It's tricky to prosecute (particularly because of how close it is to the first amendment), takes a lot of time, and often it just ends up with a minor slap on the wrist. I've seen other cases with outrageous perjury that resulted in no criminal prosecution.
This is a broken part of the justice system. Particularly because these apple execs have the money and lawyers to drag out any prosecution until everyone involved is dead. But also because it relies on government prosecutors caring in the first place.
This is the real issue. Even if they're wrong about 1), they concluded there is no personal risk for at least trying.
And they are probably correct. As it stands, there is likely a greater personal risk to their "brand" and future employment by directly damaging Apple's finances through willful compliance. That is a huge problem and conflict of interest.
Wait, isn't the board personally liable for their decisions? I'm not a lawyer, obviously.
Perdue pharma is a high profile recent example of this , but there dozens of such events from big tobacco to baby formula
Objectively and ethically, it's reprehensible, but subjectively, we're now living in a blatantly pay-to-play world and everyone else is doing it, and there are clear, easily quantifiable gains of billions to be made from that bribe.
(The best part of all this was learning that inauguration bribes have been happening for decades, generally to little fanfare.)
Where can I read more about this?
The hardware company would have to publish specs allowing anyone to offer operating systems running on Apple hardware.
Which also means, "it's time to breakup apple" means nothing, not sure why OP suggested that as a method to punish a legally problematic CEO/board. they don't have a multisegment monopoly allowing them complete control over supply chains, or multi region monopoly on smartphones that would be effected by a breakup.
He should go to jail!
What you've just described would be the single greatest punishment to an entity in the (admittently recently established) history of case-law, would upend the tech sector (maybe justly), lay off 10s of thousands and effectively stop work at downstream supply chains.
I get that this is the point of the punishment. However, do you think politicians, investors, lawyers with controlling stake, The DOD with security integrations, would allow that to happen?
Put another way, do you think the rule of law exists for the hyper rich when the current admin put.....Linda McMahon on the presidents cabinet?
A simple tradesperson is also personally responsible when they fuck up their job despite better knowledge. So if those can go to jail for the consequences of their dealings why shouldn't a CEO where the consequences are potentially of a scale several magnitudes higher? Wasn't personal responsibility in everybodies mouths, or is that only important when we talk about poor people?
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/
Maybe somebody could enlighten me but the off hours part shows -2.3%, is that a correction because people are losing faith in apple or what exactly? and would these off hours loses get converted to on hour losses or what exactly? (Sorry I could ask AI but I might as well ask here as well)
So I had done some calculations and please correct me if you think I am wrong but at 4:00 pm USA time (EDT?) the stock was selling at 213.5 open (I am not sure what the differences b/w open,close etc. are , I am not a finance guy) but it went from 213.5 open to 207.8 right now
Taking the % lose from its peak just at 4 PM EDT & multiplying it by its market cap? 3.19Trillion(1- 207.5/213.5 ) is 89_648_711_944 , ie. 89 Billion $.
So from my understanding Apple lost 89B $ in like a span of 2 hours (4PM EDT to 5:10-ish PM EDT which is the approx current time while writing this post)
That sounds REALLY BIG. Like I used to think damn Trillion $ are a lot but if such a case can cause apple to lose 89B$ in span of 2 hours then either I am doing some calculation wrong or this case has a truly big gravity that its worth not to just skim over it I guess and truly read it at detail I suppose.
Just my two cents..
Thanks for this information. I was genuinely confused after I had written this comment because well this information of epic games was already available 8 hours earlier so that had already been factored in the market 2 hours ago so I was confused as to why this change in 2 hours.
Also, I would genuinely appreciate it if we could have a seperate HN thread just for this news itself. Sounds really interesting and I have quite an opinion on it
The headline sounds positive, but apparently its not positive enough to keep the stock from dropping.
I don't know but seeing so much money move so fast with such high velocity and such corrections in minutes and thus losing or making billions. I really want stability and it does seem to me that in some sense I wish for every economy to be more comprised of small businesses which aren't changing their stock price in such drastic measures though I think such an opinion might be unpopular around here.
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The thing about a company worth several trillion dollars is that even minor movements involve (what are to us laymen) huge sums of money. Conversely, huge sums of money really are just minor movements to that company.
Some people talk about how the middle class has a hard time understanding the vast difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. The same thing applies (but probably compounded due to being at a larger scale) for thinking about billions vs. trillions of dollars.
(Just speaking to the question of scale; as someone else brought up, there've been other happenings that affect stock prices besides just this case.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145 ("Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds (wsj.com)" — 336 comments)
There is this despondent feeling among most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful and we watch the behave with ever more brazenness. The saving grace is the amount of pushback needed to put them back in line is very small. Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.
Over the last 25 years, we’ve become more tolerant to larger leeway for those of certain societal status. A relatively large whiplash must happen to course correct the general behavior, in my opinion.
Indeed. Someone (or a couple few well-known someones) in positions of real "power" need to do some real prison time in a real prison for their massive lawbreaking and abuses of power before they'll take the situation somewhat seriously.
If you make it clear that even a little slip up of fraud will be at least 1 year in prison and huge fines, I think it would work wonders.
Tough on crime policies don't really work for petty crime, because people are desperate. But rich people have so much to lose that they wouldn't risk it.
Ponzi schemes are still a regular thing despite Madoff being sentenced to 150 years behind bars. They're just relabeled as "cryptocurrencies" these days.
We've become more powerless, you mean. The government has become more tolerant.
It's less of a feeling and more of a repeatedly demonstrated reality. It shouldn't be that way, but most of the time it is. I'd love for that to change, but I can't fault people for not expecting it to happen any time soon.
Almost no-one gets that choice.
The choose a risk of going to jail for a more likely bonus.
I would wager that idea crossed the mind of Luigi Mangione.
It will take more than a slap on the hand from the court to change anything.
gee, I wonder why! you now have POTUS openly defying the direct orders from the highest court. That's so much further past some corp executive committing a crime that hasn't even gone to trial yet.
We're seeing this with just how fast and ruthless many executives were after Trump won the election, actually. The behavior of some of these people is best described as "swearing fealty": donations to Trump's circle, dismantling of anything remotely smelling as "DEI" instead of standing up for what was sold as "core values" over the last years, compliance instead of resistance (just recently Bezos in the Amazon tariff pricing issue, or the "resignation" of 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens so that the Trump admin doesn't impede a corporate merger).
We've been asking ourselves "wtf are the Russian oligarchs doing" after Putin invaded Ukraine, and now we're seeing just the same compliance from our own oligarchs.
How so?
Shortly after the next unexplained bull market in $TRUMP a pardon will appear along with direct links to their upcoming subscription service conveniently preloaded and un-delete-able from the iPhone Home Screen.
Given Apple's direct pushback against Trump's anti-"DEI" campaign, it's less likely than I might have thought - or maybe that's leverage? e.g. what if Trump promises to pardon Apple's executives if they remove the giant rainbow thingie from Apple Park and stop selling pride-related Apple watch straps?
You seem to have made the mistake of thinking that a news article saying “a judge in northern California" means “a State of California judge in the northern part of that state" rather than “a federal judge in the Northern California District Court”.
(I mean, sure, by population they mostly do, and are overwhelmingly Democratic, but if you are going to look for a county that goes against the partisan trend of the state, staying in the urban coastal enclaves and picking Orange is actually a fairly weak example.)
But most of the Central Valley and the inland Northern California counties are much more Republican than Orange.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/04/02/trump-admin-poach...
Tim Cook is better at PR than Musk, but he's also a member of Trump's inner circle (why else would there be tariff carveouts that directly benefit Apple?):
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/apple-ceo-tim-...
Unlike Musk, the two were also close during Trump 1.0.
The rainbow thingy isn't a gay pride thing. The rainbow colors are out of order, just like in the original Apple logo.
The way the monetary system is set up guarantees that market monopolies will occur. The monetary playing field is centralized and asymmetric. It's a basically a system of privilege and handicaps on a broad spectrum. Then people are surprised that those with more privileges keep winning predictably and form monopolies.
From the "free market" party from a senator with at least some shame on the red aisle.
It really is open season for buying politicians.
Steve Bannon has said many times he would've kept Lina Khan.
The populists are socially conservative but economically liberal in many respects (not all, obviously)
https://web.archive.org/web/20250501083454if_/https://www.th...
Try running snidump for a day while reading HN, including
(With SNI)
Have a look at the snidump output. Then restart snidump and try(Without SNI, i.e., "No SNI")
The sheer arrogance of Apple leaders is astounding. They think they are outright owed rent on anything that runs on an iPhone, iPad, etc. Apple thinks developers are nothing without Apple. Look at how snubbing developers has worked out for the Apple Vision Pro. It was already a niche device, but it's a ghost town.