Apple's core
When one of Apple's top executives appeared in a Melbourne court today for cross examination in the Epic Games lawsuit, he also gave away some clues about the tech giant's culture and future plans.
He may not be CEO, but since Steve Jobs’ passing Craig Federighi has taken up the mantle of Apple’s chief showman. The senior VP of software engineering is the subject of many “best moments” compilations uploaded to YouTube by Apple devotees. In the past he’s rickrolled the audience during a presentation, and last year he integrated a guitar solo into the proceedings.
There were none of these tomfooleries in Melbourne's Federal Court on Wednesday, where Federighi faced cross examination by Epic Games’ lawyer Ruth Higgins SC, as part of a closely watched lawsuit between the two companies.
As Higgins scrutinised the different security standards of iPhone and Mac software, Federighi gave rare insight into the culture of a company that’s managed to remain surprisingly secretive given its outsized impact on lives and markets around the world.
“We have a very verbal culture,” Federighi answered when questioned why there were no documents tracking internal threat models relating to the App Store over the years. “We rely on teams to embody expertise, and we transmit that expertise verbally … I know it may sound strange for a company as large as Apple that there aren’t the kinds of formalisms that one might think of.”
