A federal judge has just slapped Apple: Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that Apple was in “voluntary violation” of a decision in 2021 that she had rendered, and that she returned the company for a possible criminal prosecution.
It is quite worthy of interest. But what about the rest of Rogers’ decision?
Well, it could also be quite worthy of interest.
It is possible That it could finally be the thing that fundamentally changes how Apple uses its App Store – an increasingly key source of the company’s income.
Or, it may not be.
Let’s review.
This week’s decision is released from a legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, the company that operates Fortnite, which started almost five years ago.
In a word: Epic does not like Apple requires Fortnite players and anyone using iOS devices to make integrated purchases via the Apple App Store – and that Apple can pocket up to 30% of each transaction. During the summer of 2020, Epic deliberately violated the Apple App Store rules, which led Apple to launch Fortnite of its iPads and iPads, which led to civil prosecution.
Epic seemed to have lost his fight in 2021, when Rogers ruled against almost all the counts. But Epic won a recovery victory: Rogers said that Apple had to leave developers like Epic to tell customers that they could leave the application and go to another website, where they could make Apple’s without involvement.
This week’s decision maintains that Apple violated both the letter and the spirit of the original decision and says that Apple must comply immediately. This means, in theory, that companies like Epic will be able to tell their customers by using iPhones that they can obtain a better offer elsewhere, and that Apple will not be able to charge the developers expensive costs if this happens.
An Apple representative says that he will respect the decision, but that he will also appeal.
So on the one hand: it could be a huge problem for Apple. If the big players as Epic regularly convincing customers to carry out transactions with them outside the Apple application, this could reduce the growing “services” of Apple – an increasingly important part of the Apple income statement, because its main iPhone revenues are flat. And this comes when Apple faces similar battles around the world – the European Union has just made Apple a fine of hundreds of millions of dollars because of the way it operates the App Store on this territory.
On the other hand: as indicated above, Apple will appeal to Rogers’ decision. It is therefore possible that the buyout option is not long in the United States.
Just as important: what percentage of Apple users really want to leave the Apple App Store to buy stuff for the games they play? We have no idea.
Perhaps many of them will be motivated to do so, because they can theoretically get more for their money if Apple is not cut. Or maybe most of them will not want to face the headaches to jump from an application, take out a credit card (or ask their parents their credit card) and make purchases on a different platform.
In theory, we will discover it soon. Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney, says he will bring Fortnite to the Apple App Store next week. It is not clear, however, if Apple accepted this. I asked the two comments companies.
businessinsider
