174 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
Skip to main content
The homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.
The homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.

Sean Hollister

Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Senior Editor

    More From Sean Hollister

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    “It’s fine. Lowering fees to match Apple’s existing plan.”

    Sameer Samat, VP of Android product management, telling Lockheimer that one of its 15 percent revenue share cuts (in 2017) was directly provoked by Apple.

    Google originally wanted to lick the cookie but didn’t manage it. (One last bingo stamp for you!)

    Epic’s attorney is now combating the assertion that the change was designed to compete with Apple, pointing out how long it took Google to follow Apple here and that Samat also pointed out, “We will not make this happen in a very vocal way.”

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    Another “Google competes with Apple on security” proof point: an Apple ad.

    Google showed us a “Switch to iPhone” ad from 2018 that’s unfortunately no longer on YouTube. I’ll let AppleInsider’s description suffice:

    A woman takes one of the icons off the shelf on the “Your Store” side and it blows blue powder in her face. She then walks over to the “App Store” section as the “Your Store” shelf collapses and the word “safer” appears.

    “It’s an ad from Apple showing, basically saying that when you grab an app from the shelf, you never know what you’re going to get from the Android side,” says Lockheimer.

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    “When you sideload, the user has to understand they’re taking a risk.”

    Lockheimer looked directly at the jury when he said that.

    “We want users to understand that the apps they’re about to sideload haven’t gone through the same level of security checks as the apps we run through the Play Store,” he says.

    And we’re seeing that the head of Samsung’s mobile business, DJ Koh, expressed concern in September 2015 that Android wasn’t secured well enough against sideloaded apps (I added the link you see):

    WeChat and Didi Kuaidi, on Apple store embed malware in these apps. When this breach happened, Apple just deleted these compromised apps from their store and this blocked the propagation of the compromised app. This is a simple and effective action, however, such an action does not work very well on Android due to Android’s app distribution mechanism allowing sideloading and self-signed apps.

    Koh added later: “I think it is time to serious think [sic] about the security baseline of Android and how to improve it.”

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    I thought it was no phones in the courtroom!

    Lockheimer just became the first Googler to pull out a phone on the stand — two of them, a Samsung Z Flip and a Pixel Fold. No sideloading walkthrough, I’m afraid; they were a simple example of how Google is attempting to innovate on Android to compete with Apple.

    Hey, Hiroshi: those phones belong to the judge now. Sorry, I don’t make the rules!

    Epic v. Google: everything we learned in Fortnite court

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    Young people are “predominantly picking iPhones,” says Google’s Android boss.

    Anywhere from 4 to 10 percent of users are switching from Android to iOS in a given year, Google lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz is suggesting.

    In recent years, Google has been campaigning against Apple’s iMessage lock-in to try to regain those youth. Not that iMessage lock-in is a new issue or anything.

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    Google is humanizing Hiroshi Lockheimer a bit.

    Unlike Sundar, he’s been a relatively defensive, non-committal witness on the stand. But he’s getting the same treatment to begin: where did you go to college, how did you join Google, what is Google’s mission, etc.

    It’s a nice palate cleanser. And we’re on to a new narrative from Google with Lockheimer’s help: that it was struggling (not merely competing) against the iPhone.

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    “Are you aware that in this case we have received just two chats from you since this litigation was filed?”

    Lockheimer, too, didn’t turn on his chat history to preserve evidence, it seems. Epic says his lawyers told them he never took any steps to preserve chats. As with many things, Lockheimer said he wasn’t aware.

    We do have one chat between Lockheimer and former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, though, where they talk about how YouTube is being forced into Google Play Billing while “Spotify is our competitor who is being exempted,” according to Wojcicki.

    Lockheimer is now Google’s witness.

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    Google tipped off press about a Fortnite bug — and Epic made Lockheimer look like a liar today.

    Lockheimer said no, it wasn’t Google’s plan to tip off the press about the bug in 2018.

    But his email suggests otherwise:

    1. Ed needs to update the thread (ideally today) to notify Epic that we are going to make the bug public tomorrow now that it’s been 7 days since they fixed it.

    2. Bug goes live tomorrow morning 9am PT

    3. We tip off press about the bug and share our reactive statement and background points.

    “We shared the bug with Android Central and worked with them today to shape a piece,” Google spokesperson Shannon Newberry replied later. “Great headline and conveys the points we wanted to convey.”

    “Well done! Thank you,” replied Lockheimer.

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    Epic wants the court to see these passages of the Google Business Council proposal:

    They see opportunity to express frustration closed ecosystems through use of sideloading on Android to distribute via their website, threatening Play revenue ($130M directly) and broader business model.

    and

    High risk of contagion: Tencent is an investor in Epic and in other major game developers, and will have visibility into this deal; high risk that other games seek other distribution channels as well (up to $310M in revenue at risk)

    Epic’s lead attorney is pointing out that if Google was willing to spend $147M on Epic to protect against $130M worth of damage, there must have been something deeper at stake — the “contagion.” Lockheimer isn’t answering that directly. He’s being a very argumentative witness and, in fact, just got told off by the judge.

    Sean Hollister
    Sean Hollister
    Mark “Business Council” on your bingo card.

    Lockheimer has just been asked about that time Google went to its Business Council (anybody got bingo yet?) to try to get approval to offer Epic a big $147M deal to get Fortnite on the Play Store rather than launching elsewhere.

    He says yes, you have to go to the Business Council for certain kinds of expenditures.

    And Lockheimer was listed atop the stack of seven “Deal Representatives” who pitched the Business Council on this deal.

    Most Popular

    Most Popular
    1. Hisense aggressively cuts the price of its RGB LED TV on release day
    2. Valve just imported 50 tons of game consoles in two days
    3. Homebridge 2.0 is here, and it speaks Matter
    4. Tesla hits Musk’s threshold for ‘safe unsupervised’ driving
    5. Amazon’s trying to turn its massive shipping operation into another AWS