More from Epic Games v. Apple: the fight for the future of the App Store
Epic argues that the 27 percent fee Apple charges third-party developers violates a 2021 court order to allow outside payment links. The judge, according to Bloomberg, seems skeptical of Apple, too:
“You’re telling me a thousand people were involved and not one of them said maybe we should consider the cost” to the developers? the judge said. “Not a single person raised that issue of the thousand that were involved?”
The announcement follows the EU’s ruling to treat iPadOS the same as iOS, allowing residents to download apps from outside the Apple App Store, uninstall preloaded apps, and select default services like browsers from choice screens. iPad and iPhone users outside of Europe will have to continue streaming Fortnite through a browser.
If Epic’s Tim Sweeney is excited it can only mean bad news for Google or Apple. In this instance, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has ordered an evidentiary hearing for May 8th to explore whether Apple is “failing to abide by this Court’s injunction, which requires it to implement certain practice changes relative to in- and out-of-app purchases.”
In a 37-page filing (PDF) yesterday, Apple accused Epic of asking the court to “micromanage” its business operations to Epic’s advantage, and insisted that its new fee structure is “fair and competitive in view of the substantial value Apple provides to developers.”
Epic accused Apple in March of violating a 2021 ruling requiring it to let app developers link to outside payments.
Apple has started letting developers link to third-party payment processors, but only if it’s on Apple’s own terms.
In a January 16th filing, Apple asked the court to award it $73,404,326 in relief to cover its out-of-pocket expenses, lawyer fees, and other costs arising from Epic’s lawsuit. A bargain, if you ask Apple:
Although it would be reasonable for Apple to seek the total amount of its Losses in this matter, it has provided a 10% discount in recognition of Epic’s win on one out of ten of its claims. This 10% overall reduction is extremely generous, given the undisputed fact that the UCL claim did not constitute nearly 10% of the litigation, as this Court recognized.
Meeeoooow.
[CourtListener]
Yesterday, Epic Games filed a request for the Supreme Court to review lower court rulings in their lawsuit over Apple’s App Store rules, hoping to get a new interpretation that’s more in their favor,
Now, on Thursday, Apple submitted its own request, linked below, seeking a review to throw out the judge’s requirement that it change App Store rules barring developers from telling users about other payment options.
[DocumentCloud]
It plans to ask the Supreme Court on Friday, according to an article from Reuters. In that ruling, Apple was ordered to drop its App Store anti-steering rules, and an appeals court upheld that earlier this year.
