The new Apple/Epic ruling will change the app landscape | Opinion

Legal What was initially a narrow victory for Epic in a largely quixotic legal fight with Apple just took on profound importance – not just for Apple, but for every developer in the mobile space When last we checked in with the legal battle between Epic and Apple, things seemed to have mostly turned out in Apple’s favour. Almost all of the rulings in the case sided with Apple, with the judge only agreeing with Epic on one relatively narrow-seeming question regarding anti-steering provisions – the App Store rules that forbid developers from pointing app users at alternative ways to purchase digital items or subscriptions. Compared to the regulatory hot water Apple was simultaneously finding itself in in Europe, where the company was even forced to permit third-party app stores to operate on iOS, the legal process in the USA appeared to have produced little more than a wrist-slap; far from the seismic shift in the app distribution landscape Epic had hoped for when it picked this fight. Several years and one explosive court ruling from the original judge later, it feels like Apple may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers this week issued an absolutely scathing opinion on Apple’s non-compliance with the original ruling, accused a company executive of lying under oath (for which a referral for potential criminal charges has been made), and essentially ordered the company to follow a new, much more restrictive, set of steps to implement the ruling. “To Tim Sweeney’s credit, ‘offering’ to put Fortnite back on the App Store as part of his peace deal is a genuinely funny bit of cheek” Epic’s Tim Sweeney did an immediate victory lap with the press, claiming that Fortnite would be back on the App Store next week (it hasn’t been available directly on iOS since Apple barred Epic’s developer account for breaching their terms of service back in 2020) and publicly offering Apple a “peace proposal” whereby they would return Fortnite to the App Store and drop their ongoing litigation in return for Apple extending compliance with the court’s ruling worldwide. That’s a great bit of PR work, and you can’t blame Sweeney for capitalising on the situation – but it’s worth remembering that this ruling, rightfully furious at Apple’s conduct as it may be, still only applies to the single issue where the judge originally sided with Epic. It does not change any of the other rulings, and certainly doesn’t order Apple to reinstate Epic’s developer account or any of its software (to Sweeney’s credit, “offering” to put Fortnite back on the App Store as part of his peace deal is a genuinely funny bit of cheek, given that its absence is due to a ban on Apple’s part). The ruling and the remedies it orders are still exclusively related to anti-steering practices – there’s nothing here to suggest that Apple will be ordered to open up to third-party app stores like in Europe, for example. Even if the
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