Eddy Cue, in a darkish swimsuit, peered down on the monitor in entrance of him. The screens within the Washington, DC, courtroom had briefly malfunctioned and left witnesses with solely binders, however now the tech was up and working — displaying a picture of three iPhones, every demonstrating part of the telephone’s setup course of. Cue squinted down on the display.

“The decision on that is horrible,” he stated. “It is best to get a Mac.” That bought some laughs in an in any other case staid and quiet courtroom. Choose Amit Mehta, presiding over the case, leaned into his microphone and responded, “If Apple want to make a donation…” That bought even larger laughs. Then all people bought again all the way down to enterprise.

Cue was on the stand as a witness in US v. Google, the landmark antitrust trial over Google’s search enterprise. Cue is among the highest-profile witnesses within the case to date, partly as a result of the deal between Google and Apple — which makes Google the default search engine on all Apple gadgets and pays Apple billions of {dollars} a yr — is central to the US Division of Justice’s case in opposition to Google.

Cue had two messages: Apple believes in defending its customers’ privateness, and it additionally believes in Google. Whether or not these two statements might be concurrently true grew to become the query of the day.

Apple is in courtroom due to one thing known as the Info Providers Settlement, or ISA: a deal that makes Google’s search engine the default on Apple’s merchandise. The ISA has been in place since 2002, however Cue was accountable for negotiating its present iteration with Google CEO Sundar Pichai in 2016. In testimony in the present day, the Justice Division grilled Cue in regards to the specifics of the deal.

When the 2 sides renegotiated, Cue stated on the stand, Apple needed a better share of the income Google comprised of Apple customers it directed towards the search engine. Dialogue of particular numbers was reserved for closed courtroom classes, however Cue needed Apple to get a better share, whereas Pichai needed to maintain the deal because it was. They finally compromised on another quantity we weren’t advised in courtroom, and Google has been paying Apple that quantity since.

Meagan Bellshaw, a Justice Division lawyer, requested Cue if he would have walked away from the deal if the 2 sides couldn’t agree on a revenue-share determine. Cue stated he’d by no means actually thought-about that an choice: “I all the time felt prefer it was in Google’s finest curiosity, and our greatest curiosity, to get a deal carried out.” Cue additionally argued that the deal was about greater than economics and that Apple by no means significantly thought-about switching to a different supplier or constructing its personal search product. “Definitely there wasn’t a legitimate different to Google on the time,” Cue stated. He stated there nonetheless isn’t one.

That query — whether or not Apple picked Google as a result of it’s probably the most profitable alternative or the most effective product — was a key a part of Cue’s testimony and, in truth, a key a part of the DOJ’s total case in opposition to Google. The Justice Division is targeted on the offers Google makes — with Apple but additionally with Samsung and Mozilla and lots of others — to make sure it’s the default search engine on virtually each platform. 

Bellshaw requested Cue various questions in regards to the iPhone setup course of. These three screenshots confirmed the Look display that exhibits up whenever you first boot up your iPhone so you possibly can decide font sizes; the location-tracking immediate that seems whenever you open Maps; and the App Monitoring Transparency pop-up that tells you when an app desires to gather your knowledge. Cue objected to all this stuff being thought-about a part of setup, however Bellshaw’s level was that Apple gives its customers a alternative about a number of issues, large and small, and that search might be one among them. 

Cue acknowledged that the ISA didn’t permit Apple to supply customers a alternative of search engines like google and yahoo throughout setup but additionally stated he wouldn’t need to try this anyway. “We attempt to get folks up and working as quick as potential,” he stated. “Setup is simply crucial stuff.” Exhibiting folks a bunch of search engines like google and yahoo they’ve by no means heard of would simply be a nasty person expertise, he argued; even Cue couldn’t keep in mind the names of among the alternate options to Google. “We make Google be the default search engine,” he stated, “as a result of we’ve all the time thought it was the most effective. We decide the most effective one and let customers simply change it.” (“Simply” is a persistent level of competition on this trial — DuckDuckGo’s CEO, who testified final week, claimed it takes “too many steps” to change.)

As for the privateness pop-ups? That is the place Bellshaw started to press on how precisely Apple determined Google had the most effective product. She requested Cue if Apple believes person privateness is essential, to which he stated, “Completely.” Then, she confirmed a sequence of emails and slides through which Cue and Apple railed in opposition to Google’s privateness insurance policies. Cue readily agreed. “We’ve all the time thought we had higher privateness than Google,” he advised Bellshaw. He stated that one provision of the ISA with Google was that Google needed to permit folks to look with out logging in and that Apple has carried out issues in Safari and round its platforms to make it tougher for Google or anybody else to trace customers.

Bellshaw by no means fairly stated it, however the DOJ’s implication gave the impression to be that, basically, Google is a privateness menace anathema to all the things Apple believes is essential to its customers, however Apple provides it a central place in its platform as a result of Google pays it so handsomely. Bellshaw requested Cue to assessment a few of Apple’s monetary filings. Isn’t it true that the ISA represents a good portion of Apple’s earnings, she requested? Cue stated that’s not how Apple appears to be like at it as a result of it doesn’t account for all of the work Apple did to make its platform so interesting that an settlement like this might work in addition to it does. 

Later, after a closed session within the courtroom and a break for lunch, Google lawyer John Schmidtlein led Cue by a historical past of the Google / Apple partnership, and a historical past of the Safari browser. Cue famous that Safari’s mixture of URL and search bar was a person interface innovation, and the seamless Google integration was a part of what made it work. In early promotional supplies for Safari, Schmidtlein identified, the Google integration was almost all the time talked about.

“Earlier than 2003,” Cue stated, “the best way that you just searched the online was you needed to go in and also you needed to sort in google.com within the URL discipline, or you may sort in one other URL. We got here up with the concept in case you sort something within the URL discipline that’s not a URL, it simply goes to look.”

Schmidtlein’s general level was that Google helped Safari succeed not by forcing Apple’s hand, however by being a terrific product that built-in seamlessly with Apple’s personal stuff. He referenced Apple’s offers with Yahoo and Bing that make these companies straightforward to search out, and each males argued that switching search engines like google and yahoo is really easy as to be a non-issue. Bellshaw briefly stepped as much as rebut that notion, and that was it for Cue’s testimony.

A minimum of, that’s all of the testimony we noticed. Like so many issues on this trial, the star witness was saved principally beneath wraps due to complaints and worries about revealing confidential numbers and company secrets and techniques. However the questions put to Cue have been the identical ones the DOJ goes to maintain asking: is Google actually the most effective search engine, or is it simply the one writing the largest checks? And if these checks went away, what would the search engine market appear like? Cue stated Apple’s by no means actually thought of it. Google stated Apple could be foolish to take action. And the Justice Division thinks it’s about time Apple begins doing so.

Replace September twenty sixth, 3:32PM ET: Added data on the rest of Cue’s testimony.