Unless the iPhone maker wins a reprieve from an appeals court, it will soon have to start allowing developers to steer customers to payment methods outside the App Store, an overhaul the judge ordered in September that could
Apple asked U.S. District Judge
“Apple’s motion is based on a selective reading of this court’s findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction,” Rogers said in an order Tuesday. “The motion is fundamentally flawed.”
Apple said it will ask the federal appeals court in San Francisco to put
“Apple believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals in this case are resolved,” the company said in a statement.
Epic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
While Apple largely won its showdown with Epic, the world’s most valuable technology company isn’t out of danger from challenges to its role as a gatekeeper to the digital economy. The iPhone maker
Bloomberg Intelligence has said that pressure on Apple to lower its App Store commissions on developers, which currently run as high as 30%, could squeeze revenue by $2 billion to $4 billion in a worst-case scenario.
In her Sept. 10 ruling, Rogers gave Apple 90 days to change its rules that prohibit mobile-app developers from informing their customers about payment options on the web beyond the App Store through ways such as emails.
Apple argued “there’s no reason to expend resources” on App Store changes while it appeals the one element of the judge’s ruling that it lost following a three-week trial in May in Oakland, California. It could take the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco more than a year to render a decision.
Epic
Meanwhile, the maker of the popular Fortnite game is appealing the portions of Rogers’ decision that went against it. Epic’s chief executive officer, Tim Sweeney, has
In the September ruling, Rogers vindicated Apple over Epic’s claims that App Store policies violate federal antitrust law because they hurt developers and consumers while enriching the technology giant. But she held that Apple had violated California’s unfair competition laws with it’s so-called anti-steering policy.
Before the ruling, Apple announced two App Store changes, similar to the court’s injunction, in settlements with small U.S. developers and the Japan Federal Trade Commission.
Apple is letting developers directly communicate with users about alternative payment methods, and next year it will begin allowing so-called “reader” apps -- those that deal with media like video, photos, and news -- to point users to the web to subscribe, bypassing Apple’s fees. The company highlighted those changes in its filing last month urging Rogers to grant its stay request.
Epic Games Inc. v. Apple Inc., 4:20-cv-05640, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).
(Updates with Apple’s statement in fifth paragraph.)
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