U.S. vs. Apple (s AAPL) is in its third and final week, and Apple's witnesses are now taking the stand. Here's what you need to know so far:

  • Fortune lists Apple's witnesses for this week, with a reminder that all of their testimony has to be wrapped up by Wednesday because summations take place on Thursday and there's no court on Friday. "Then Judge Cote will have to write her decision. The best estimate I've heard for how long she'll need is three weeks, give or take a week."
  • Apple SVP Eddy Cue took the stand for most of the day Monday and was questioned by both DOJ and Apple attorneys. Publishers Marketplace reports, "Cue, as he did on Thursday, did not offer much in the way of relevant information that would affect the price-fixing case on either side. Instead his testimony provided lots of Steve Jobs nostalgia, with additional tidbits on the late Apple chief's active involvement in the creation of the iBookstore and the agency model."
  • A lot of the questioning has centered around emails that Jobs wrote at the time of the launch of the iBookstore. In one, Jobs wrote "Wow, we have really lit the fuse on a powder keg." The New York Times reports, "Mr. Cue said Mr. Jobs was remarking on the company's ability to 'cause ripples' in the e-book industry, which was then largely dominated by Amazon."
  • Jobs had the idea for virtual page curls in iBooks and chose Winnie the Pooh as the free book that came with every iBooks app. (AllThingsD)
  • After Apple VP Keith Moerer said last week that Apple has 20 percent of the U.S. ebook market, Cue said it has "grown 25 percent" from what he claimed was a 20 percent market share in 2010, i.e. that it is now at 25 percent, Publishers Marketplace reports. (It seems implausible that Apple had 20 percent of the ebook market in 2010.) Also, "Apple is apparently neck-and-neck with Barnes & Noble for the number-two spot after Amazon: 'I believe it's close. I've heard at different times we go back and forth,' said Cue."
  • Mac vs. Windows! "Both parties showed their evidence on a projector screen. Apple's legal team used a MacBook to shuffle between evidence documents, stacking them side by side in split screens and zooming in on specific paragraphs. In contrast, the Justice Department's lawyers could show only one piece of evidence at a time. One video that [DOJ attorney] Mr. Buterman played as evidence failed to produce the audio commentary needed to make his point." (NYT) Apple Insider notes that the DOJ was using HP computers.