On Friday, a federal judge must decide after a Friday hearing whether to hold Apple in contempt for violating her injunction to stop its practices restricting how app developers offer products in the App Store, which she says was anticompetitive.

As part of a monthlong series of hearings, the parties first came to court May 8 before U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to analyze Epic Games’ claim that Apple violated her 2021 injunction on its policy preventing developers from adding external links and buttons in apps.

Epic Games wants Rogers to order the tech giant to remove all anti-steering provisions in its developer guidelines, saying that its requirements amount to “a de facto prohibition on external links." 

Rogers on Friday said that she still needs many documents from Apple from the period when it explored and confirmed its new App Store policies, before she rules on the matter. 

“I want all of Apple’s documents relative to its decision making process with respect to the issues in front of the court,” Rogers told Apple attorney Mark Perry. “All of them. If there is a concern, then be overly broad.”

In a May 10 hearing, she accused Apple executive and fellow Philip Schiller of not having data on Apple’s reasons for changing its business strategy following her injunction order.

“It sounds to me like the goal was to maintain the business model and the revenue that you had in the past,” she said.

In another hearing May 22, Epic said that Apple tries to dissuade developers from taking advantage of the policy change resulting from the injunction. Apple denied that characterization, saying that its policy does not impede users from going to external links to choose other ways to purchase outside the App Store.

Rogers said that day that Apple's decision seem to be made to ensure that developers operate within a system with as little competitive “friction” as possible, to maximize its advantage for profit.

“The question is if you are trying to hide something — we obviously don’t want people to use wiggle room to hide things,” Rogers said. “Decisions were made, analysis was apparently done. All of it is concerning.”

Perry said Friday that Apple will produce a large number of documents for the judge, which could take about three months to produce. For more on this story, read the full report by Natalie Hanson on Courthouse News