Apple’s bid to freeze court-ordered App Store changes while it pursues U.S. Supreme Court review got rejected Tuesday as the latest decision in the iPhone giant’s long-running legal fight with Fortnite maker Epic Games. So the clock is now ticking on compliance pending another decision over what Apple can charge in fees.
Fortnite can once again be installed on iPhones and iPads in the United States, developer Epic Games announced triumphantly on Tuesday. The very popular game is back in the U.S. App Store.
The change comes almost five years after Apple banned the battle royale game in a spat with Epic over in-app payments.
UPDATE: Fortnite returned to the U.S. App Store on May 20.
Epic Games’ hope to get Fortnite reinstated on the U.S. iPhone App Store crashed and burned. Apple used a letter from one of its lawyers to deny the attempt to let iPhone users in the United States install and play the popular game. This is the latest clash in a long-running dispute between the two companies.
Epic claimed Friday that Apple had also blocked Fortnite in Europe, which Apple denies.
Epic Games recently promised to resubmit the hugely popular game Fortnite to the U.S. App Store, and it carried through with the promise Friday. It’s now up to Apple whether the application will be approved.
The move came after a U.S. judge blasted Apple for willfully violating the court’s 2021 order, and ordered Apple to comply with earlier App Store changes effective immediately. These are changes that Epic fought for, and relate to Apple policies that got Fortnite banned in the first place.
Apple banned Epic Games’ developer account in 2020. Yet, the latter’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, confirmed last week that Fortnite will return to the U.S. App Store after a judge blasted Apple for not complying with the court’s order.
Wondering how? Sweeney revealed the secret, saying Epic Games will use their EU account.
Epic Games can release Fortnite in the EU and open an App Store rival after Apple restored the company’s developer account. This came as the European Commission was starting an inquiry into why the account had been cancelled.
Apple called Epic Games “untrustworthy” when it pulled the account.
Following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear appeals in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit, Apple is making significant changes to its U.S. App Store guidelines.
Developers can now link to an external in-app payment method. However, they still will need to pay Apple a commission of 12% to 27% on these transactions. And the mechanism for allowing such external payments might prove so onerous that developers take a pass.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called it a “bad-faith ‘compliance’ plan” Tuesday — and vowed that his company will contest Apple’s plan in District Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld a lower court’s ruling that Apple must allow third-party iPhone app developers to point customers to their websites when making purchases. This means the company is forced to drop its “anti-steering” rule for such applications — a major change.
It’s the primary result of Apple’s long-running legal battle with Epic Games.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by Epic Games that would have required Apple to immediately get rid of its “anti-steering” rule for third-party applications — a major change. Instead, the Mac-maker can wait until there’s a final decision by the high court.
This means Apple doesn’t have to change its policy that prevents developers from sending customers from their applications to their websites to pay for subscriptions or services … yet.
Apple is hoping to take its lawsuit with Epic Games all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on Monday received permission to hold off on making a significant change to the App Store ordered by lower courts until there’s a final decision by the high court.
This means the Mac-maker won’t have to change its App Store policy that prevents developers from sending customers to their websites to pay for apps or services… yet.
A United States appeals court agreed with a lower court’s ruling that Apple’s App Store does not break U.S. antitrust law. This is a victory for Apple’s efforts to keep the government from changing the way the App Store runs.
A different ruling from the courts could have resulted in Apple be forced to modify iOS so the iPhone supports sideloading and/or rival software stores.
Developers will have to put plans to steer App Store users to their own direct payments systems on the back burner. A court on Wednesday granted Apple’s request to put the change on hold while the iPhone-maker appeals the Epic Games v. Apple court ruling.
Any modifications to the App Store resulting from the lawsuit are now in limbo… quite possibly for years.
The first phase of the legal war between Apple and Epic Games is over, and a Federal court agreed with the game developer in some of the major points in their lawsuit. But Apple refuses to reinstate Fortnite and other Epic titles to its App Store during the appeals process.
The iPhone maker says this is the result of “Epic’s duplicitous conduct” leading to the lawsuit.
Apple has been ordered by a federal judge to allow iPhone software developers to point customers to their own websites to make in-app purchases. Previously, Apple required all these transactions to happen through its payment system. The change will prevent the iPhone-maker from collecting 15% to 30% of the revenue from transactions that go through developers’ direct payment systems.
This is the primary result of the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit. And it’s exactly what Epic asked for in the first place.
As the Epic Games v. Apple trial winds down, Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the witness stand Friday to deliver a big fat nothingburger.
Trial watchers were hoping Cook would deliver dramatic and explosive testimony, but he mostly dodged, demurred or couldn’t remember.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, told a court on Wednesday that there’s more Mac malware available than Apple’s executive team is comfortable with. And he says iPhones do a much better job of protecting users.
Federighi was testifying at the Epic Games v. Apple trial explaining why he thinks the iPhone-maker’s tight control of the iOS App Store is necessary.
Apple fellow Phil Schiller took the stand Monday in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit and during testimony revealed the cost of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference: $50 million. He’s in charge of both WWDC and App Store so he brings unique insight to the ongoing court battle.
This is one of many details the long-standing Apple executive talked about on the stand.
If the judge in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit decides to rule against the iPhone-maker, she may have already signaled the significant App Store change she would order to satisfy the game developer’s complaints.
The judge asked a question that shows she’s considering allowing developers to point customers to their own websites to make in-app purchases. Currently, these purchases must go through Apple’s payment system.
At the core of Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple is the assertion that the iPhone-maker has a monopoly. With testimony from an expert witness, the game developer has begun laying out its arguments to convince the judge why she should agree.
Essentially, it claims that switching from iPhone to another device is so difficult that Apple can treat its users as if they had no other options.
The process for checking applications submitted to the App Store became the major focus of the Epic Games v. Apple court battle Friday. An important detail that came to light is that Apple employs 500 human experts checking submissions.
Epic Games used Friday’s trial testimony to bring to light fraudulent or inappropriate apps that slipped past Apple’s review team and onto the App Store. Fortunately, the problem is fixable: Put more people on the job. Double or triple the number.
In testimony on Thursday in the Epic Games v. Apple trial, Trystan Kosmynka, the senior director for the App Store review process, confirmed that around 5 million appications are submitted to the software store per year. And roughly 35% are rejected.
The latest insider info brought to light by the Epic Games v. Apple trial is the lengths the Mac-maker went to convince Netflix to continue taking subscriptions in its iPhone/iPad app. But Netflix stopped anyway, and Apple took no action.
When Epic Games tried to do something similar, Apple banned all its software from the App Store.
Epic Games suggested a change to the iPhone App Store that, if Apple had followed it, might have prevented the lawsuit that landed the two tech giants in court this week.
The game developer recommended that Apple continue to police third-party software, looking for malware, privacy violations, etc. But once the iPhone-maker signed off on an app, it would be up to the developer how the software got distributed.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Scott Forstall, Apple’s former SVP of iOS software, was being talked about as a possible CEO successor to Steve Jobs. Then came the disastrous Apple Maps launch in 2012, and Forstall’s subsequent departure from the company.
Forstall has shown up a couple of times since then, but otherwise maintained a low profile. Now, as unearthed by the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit, the Cupertino company says it doesn’t even have a current phone number for Forstall — only a Twitter account and P.O. Box reference.