Apple updates US App Store rules following Supreme Court decision
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More news: Apple has revised its US App Store rules following the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the company's appeal in its legal battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games. The tech giant has reformed its guidelines to relax previous rules that prohibited developers from linking to alternative payment systems in their apps, while it will continue to charge commission on purchases.
US Supreme Court declines to hear Epic Games-Apple case
The news: The US Supreme Court has said it will not review Epic Games' legal case against Apple, the Financial Times reported.
The numbers: Fortnite maker Epic Games was removed from Apple's App Store after deliberately bypassing its in-app payment mechanism in protest against the 30% fee on digital purchases.
The context: The legal battle began after Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Apple in August 2020, alleging the iPhone maker prevented competition among iOS apps on its App Store. Epic also opened a similar legal dispute with Google over its Play Store on Android, with a federal jury finding Google broke antitrust law in December.
The latest Supreme Court decision will uphold a lower-court ruling that rejected Epic’s claims that Apple had broken federal antitrust law, while maintaining an injunction ordering Apple to update its App Store to allow developers to direct users outside of their apps to make payments.
What they said: Following the court order, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney posted on X: “The court battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States.”
“As of today, developers can begin exercising their court-established right to tell US customers about better prices on the web. These awful Apple-mandated confusion screens are over and done forever.”
The source: Financial Times
