A U.S. District judge ruled that Apple did indeed conspire with publishers to fix e-book prices when it launched iBooks. Apple continues to deny the charges and reportedly plans to appeal. All five publishers also charged in the case have already reached out-of-court settlements with the government.
Apple had pushed a pricing model where publishers must sell books at the same price on all services, rather than letting retailers, such as Amazon, set prices at any amount.
In another court, Apple and Amazon made peace over a lawsuit concerning the “app store” name. Held up for years, the case started when Apple accused Amazon of infringing on its App Store trademark by using a similar name for selling apps for Kindle devices. Amazon had countersued. Both companies have agreed to drop the cases.