A 2007 email between Steve Jobs and then Apple SVP of Software Engineering, approving 3rd party iPhone apps and an App Store, surfaces among Epic trial docs

An email has been going around the internet as a part of a release of documents related to Apple's App Store based suit brought by Epic Games.

TechCrunch 2021-06-05 Matthew Panzarino

Context & Ripple Effects

The Epic v. Apple docket keeps functioning as a public archive of App Store decision-making. It began with Apple's own counter-move — a legal filing that produced three Tim Sweeney emails to argue Epic wanted a special deal rather than open access — and continued through trial testimony where Sweeney said he would have accepted an exclusive App Store arrangement.

This newly surfaced 2007 Jobs email extends the pattern back to the origin point: it shows the App Store and third-party apps were a deliberate founder-level approval, not an emergent afterthought. It lands alongside other disclosed internals, including Phil Schiller's 2011 note floating a cut to Apple's 30% fee if annual App Store profits stayed above $1B.

First-order effects

Epic's legal team gains provenance evidence that Apple's walled-garden model was an explicit executive decision from 2007, usable in arguments over whether the App Store is a natural design choice or a chosen gate.
Apple must litigate around founder-era correspondence it cannot disown, since Jobs's approval of third-party apps undercuts any claim that sideloading is technically or historically foreign to the iPhone.

Second-order effects

Each document release raises the stakes of Apple's broader defense narrative, which so far has leaned on Epic's own emails — the Sweeney special-deal filings — to frame the dispute as contract negotiation, not monopoly abuse.
The steady drip of internal fee deliberations, like the Schiller email on cutting the 30% rate, gives developers and regulators concrete benchmarks for arguing current commission levels are strategic choices with margin headroom.

Third-order effects

If the discovery pattern holds through this case and successors, major platform owners face a structural shift: their most sensitive historical product and pricing decisions become public record by default, weakening secrecy as a litigation asset.
The accumulating archive — from the Sweeney emails through the iPhone nano and fee-lowering discussions — is building the evidentiary base regulators need to treat app-store commissions as a scrutinized market rather than a private business term.

The trend: Platform antitrust litigation is converting companies' internal archives into public regulatory evidence, with the App Store as the defining case.

Discussion

@techemails @techemails on x
Bertrand Serlet to Steve Jobs: “Fine, let's enable Cocoa Touch apps” October 2, 2007
@techemails @techemails on x
Internal emails revealed during Epic trial show Apple execs in 2007 discussing 15-inch MacBook Air model, iPod “Super nano”, and more
@techemails @techemails on x
Scott Forstall's feedback on a draft of Steve Jobs's iPhone SDK letter October 14, 2007 https://twitter.com/...
@techemails @techemails on x
Phil Schiller and T-Mobile COO discuss In-App Purchase September 6, 2018 https://twitter.com/...
@techemails @techemails on x
Scott Forstall on forthcoming iPhone, third-party apps, voice interaction October 19, 2006 https://twitter.com/...
@panzer Matthew Panzarino on x
Felt like writing about That Apple Email https://techcrunch.com/...
@neilcybart Neil Cybart on x
@panzer Sure. I just don't think that one email is as significant as it may appear. The decision to go forward with the App Store (circa 2007) took months of convincing. This was reported 10 yrs ago. My suspicion is that email came near the end of that phase after lengthy discuss…
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
I'm surprised that some think the Apple emails are surprising. In every dimension they are the discussions one would have expected and wanted. 🥱, but sure fun to read.
@mukund Mukund Mohan on x
Crisp, lean communication that does not coddle or equivocate, with a leader that is confident in their own ability and the ability of those that they hired means that there is no need to bog down the process in order to establish a record of involvement https://techcrunch.com/...
@techemails @techemails on x
Scott Forstall's initial requirements for in-app purchases December 19, 2008 https://twitter.com/...
@altimor Flo Crivello on x
Seriously, this is the most epic email I've ever read. I can only hope the author was playing some Hans Zimmer music writing this. Clear thinking, written on the fly — the culmination of 30-40 years building software. “Let's do it right this time.” https://twitter.com/...
@slightlylate Alex Russell on x
Web developers: this was the end of Apple pushing hard for the web. 2007. Time to wake up and understand the game is rigged against you. https://twitter.com/...
@panzer Matthew Panzarino on x
If Bertrand Serlet and Steve Jobs could change the world over an email perhaps we don't need to have that meeting. https://twitter.com/...
@sundeep Sunny Madra on x
The email that ultimately lead to a $64b business at Apple. Amazing efficiency. https://techcrunch.com/...
@alexlmiller @alexlmiller on x
This email should be an HBS case study https://twitter.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
The App Store isn't a standalone business but instead part of an ecosystem. It literally monetizes based on product work done in iOS (IAPs). Microsoft used to make the mistake of treating Visual Studio as a profit center versus on ramp to the ecosystem, realization led to @code h…
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
For all that people mocked Apple for claiming they don't do that analysis, disclosure did not turn up any Apple analysis of App Store profitability
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
Idle observation: in all the Epic/Apple filings, there are at least a dozen 100+ slide internal Apple presentations of metrics for the App Store. Billings, genres, popular apps, payment models, developers - every metric Not a single one has a P&L or any analysis of costs at all
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
Amongst other things (clarity, precision, decision points) note that the first item is to manage the platform, and that's to ‘protect the user’ and not just to levy a ‘tax’ https://twitter.com/...
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
I haven't seen this before. In 2008, Apple was considering allowing side-loading in parallel to the App Store https://twitter.com/...
@fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x
great piece, and panzer's kicker about meetings is right on https://twitter.com/...
@counternotions Kontra on x
Adulting, the Apple way. https://techcrunch.com/...
@stroughtonsmith Steve Troughton-Smith on x
Interesting! As late as August 2007 Apple still hadn't committed to opening up the iPhone to developers beyond EA. Also: 15" MacBook Air and ‘Tablet’ were penciled in for 1H 2008? They thought they were mere months away from those products? https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp Martin Sfp Bryant on x
“And, hey, maybe we can take this opportunity to make that next meeting an email?” https://twitter.com/...
@rycaut Shannon Clark on x
Great post on TechCrunch. One that anyone working in tech, especially at big companies (or heck anyone at big companies whether tech or not) should read. It's a quick read but an important one. https://twitter.com/...
@raytraced @raytraced on x
the hidden portion of the iceberg here is the work bertand and scott had to do to build and scope out that numbered list, and then accept the responsibility to deliver it. that's unreal chops. 🏅 https://twitter.com/...
@vladsavov Vlad Savov on x
We forget now, but Apple and Google once saved us from the abject terror of carrier-controlled app stores.
@lapcatsoftware Jeff Johnson on x
Apple's decision to clone iTunes Music Store and release it just a few months later as App Store was the worst catastrophe in the history of computer software. $0.99 songs quickly became $0.99 apps. The race to the bottom was inevitable. Software pricing never recovered.
@lapcatsoftware Jeff Johnson on x
Apple today: “We can't work remotely, because the important conversations happen in person.” https://twitter.com/...
@shaft Leslie Miley on x
This is classic #SteveJobs The team I worked on at Apple was given 7 days to build the app to get a free case for the iPhone 4 during the scandal known as #antennagate https://twitter.com/...
@mxcl Max Howell on x
Bertrand: let's do it properly this time. Jobs: sure, you have 10 weeks. https://twitter.com/...
@kocienda Ken Kocienda on x
We rewrote very few classes. One of them was mine. The UITextView in the SDK was new, and while we tried to move all our own clients to use it, I recall that Notes continued to use a renamed pre-SDK UILegacyTextView for a couple versions.
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
This is an amazing email both from the consequences of the features proposed and agreed on in this thread as well as Steve Jobs giving them a THREE MONTH deadline. https://twitter.com/...
@kocienda Ken Kocienda on x
The aggressive schedule was possible because we *already had* good APIs. We used them to ship the 1.0 iPhone! The SDK task became making those internal APIs public. Much of that was name scrubbing and deciding what features we cared to support for the long haul. https://twitter.c…
@immad @immad on x
Oct 2, 2007 - email sent proposing App Store launch Jan, 15, 2008: deadline for launch set by Steve Jobs That is a brutal timeline. 3.5 months to launch a world changing feature. https://twitter.com/...
@kocienda Ken Kocienda on x
The iOS SDK experience taught me an important lesson: APIs matter. Before we ever expected to share our code with the wider world, we chose useful abstractions, we picked good names, and we thought about the future. We reaped the benefits.
@stroughtonsmith Steve Troughton-Smith on x
This might be one of the most important decisions ever made over email https://twitter.com/...
@asymco Horace Dediu on x
The decision to enable third party Apps (and the App Store) on the iPhone was made barely 90 days after the iPhone was released. https://twitter.com/...
@olivercameron Oliver Cameron on x
This simple email thread went on to create trillions of dollars of value. https://twitter.com/...
@nathanblawrence Nathan Lawrence on x
Oh look this is apparently the email that created my entire career https://twitter.com/...
@fairaday William Fairaday on x
I've literally had ONE email interaction with a VP/President level person like this, and it has really dictated the last year of my. life. Their response to a broad program request: “Sure, do what you feel will make the best impact on our customers” https://techcrunch.com/...
@shyamk Shyam on x
Why jump on meetings/hop onto a call when you can communicate precisely and clearly over written email ? Some interesting points here — https://techcrunch.com/...
@preshit @preshit on x
The same company that went from an email to a full-blown SDK and the App Store in ~10 months now can't seem to fix simple bugs for years. https://techcrunch.com/...

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