NEW YORK (Hypebot) – A trial that may seem like its just rehashing ancient history is promising to reveal the behind the scenes story of Apple's rise to music industry domination. Day 1 of the trial, in which the plaintiffs hope to prove that Apple willfully worked to destroy competition to its new iTunes digital music store and companion iPod player, offered its first bombshell: Apple knowingly deleted competitors tracks from the iPod and did not tell its users.
“You guys decided to give them the worst possible experience and blow up the iPod users music collection," the plaintiff's attorney Patrick Coughlin told a packed U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif.
When a user tried to sync music purchased anywhere but on iTunes to an iPod, the track in their iTunes library launched an error message that instructed the user to restore the factory settings which then deleted the songs, according to court testimony reported by the Wall Street Journal. Apple chose “not to tell users the problem,” said Coughlin.
"We don’t need to give users too much information."
Apple rebutted that keeping rival tracks off the iPod was a legitimate security measure. And besides, “We don’t need to give users too much information… We don’t want to confuse users,” Apple security director Augustin Farrugia testified.
