Err, it was not a hail mary. It was almost certainly the main thrust of their strategy. (I'm speaking as a lawyer who has strategized this exact issue before!)

Err, it was not a hail mary. It was almost certainly the main thrust of their strategy. (I'm speaking as a lawyer who has strategized this exact issue before!) They do get a shot at the merits. Their hope of winning on the merits is incredibly low. The reason they fought so hard (and others do) is because almost all antitrust cases are decided by what the court defines the market as. If you go look through appeals of antitrust cases, you'll see most focus on the definition of the market and only secondarily on whether they caused harm in that market. It's only when they lose (or it's a foregone conclusion) on the market side that they argue heavily on the harm side. In this case, the market is defined in such a way that apple is almost certain to lose. Apple is really not going to have a good time saying their 30% cut helps consumers. This is why they argued the standing issue all the way to scotus. For example, it is highly unlikely they will be able to show that the markup is to do things like "police the app store", because the markup is way too high for that purpose. Court will almost certainly find it a harmful tax that is not beneficial to consumers.