The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear any appeals in the ever ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games. These legal disputes largely focus on various policies with the iOS App Store that Epic Games disagrees with.
Apple initially appealed a lower court's ruling that said Apple needed to make some changes to their policies on iOS. Specifically, the ruling said that Apple couldn't block links that allowed users to explore payment options that did not go through the Apple ecosystem. That appeal did not go in Apple's favor.
Meanwhile, Epic was trying to appeal lower court rulings that dismissed a number of Epic's initial complaints. Those claims mainly focused on the idea that Apple holds an illegal monopoly due to bans of third-party marketplaces on its operating system.
This Epic Games vs. Apple legal battle has been going on now since 2020. At that time, Epic released an update to Fortnite that allowed users to buy in-game V-Bucks currency without going through Apple. Fortnite was then kicked from the App Store. Epic then sued Apple and tried to garner support by enticing gamers to rise up via a cringey spoof of Apple's 1984 ad. A majority of the rulings in the initial legal battle went in Apple's favor. Appeals were made but ultimately went nowhere for either company.
Both companies then tried to appeal to the US Supreme Court and both companies have been shot down. The US Supreme Court is refusing to hear either side's appeals. However, no reasons were given by the Supreme Court for their decision to not hear these appeals.
Naturally, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney had some things to say about the Supreme Court's decision.
The Supreme Court denied both sides’ appeals of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. The court battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States. A sad outcome for all developers.
Now the District Court’s injunction against Apple’s anti-steering rule is in effect, and developers can include in their apps “buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP”.
Now the District Court’s injunction against Apple’s anti-steering rule is in effect, and developers can include in their apps “buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP”.
Sweeney says that it's because of this attempt at exploiting a potential legal loophole that they will continue the fight against Apple. Sweeney calls this 27% cut demanded of Apple the "Apple tax" and claims that it "kills price competition." Sweeney says that Apple made the process of accessing these third-party payment methods quite cumbersome in that a user is forced to log in via a separate browser session and "search all over again for the digital item they wanted to buy."
Epic will contest Apple's bad-faith compliance plan in District Court.
