Amber Neely
The Epic versus Apple saga continues to stretch on, as Epic has requested federal intervention after accusing Apple of failing to remove anti-steering measures how it wanted them to.
In January, the three-year battle between Apple and Epic had finally concluded after the Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from either company. This meant that Apple would need to comply with the one ruling it lost — a fight against Apple's anti-steering practices.
In a court order filed on Wednesday, Epic has asked a federal judge to hold Apple in contempt of court over failure to comply with the court order that would allow developers to link to outside payment platforms.
"Apple's goal is clear: to prevent purchasing alternatives from constraining the supracompetitive fees it collects on purchases of digital goods and services," Epic said in the filing. "Apple's so-called compliance is a sham."
Of course, Apple has already filed with the court that it has complied. In January, Apple informed the court that it was allowing developers to apply for an entitlement to provide a link within their app to a website the developer owns or is responsible for. The entitlement can only be used for iOS or iPadOS apps in the United States App Store.
If approved, developers must prove goods purchased via the external app link are for in-app use. They also must provide methods for disputing unauthorized transactions, managing subscriptions, and requesting refunds.
Additionally, Apple will still charge a 27% commission on purchases made via external links. Developers eligible for the App Store Small Business Program will be charged a 12% commission, and second-year subscriptions will also be charged 12%.
The court did not reject that compliance filing, and it was able to do so if it wanted.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
9 Comments
So if the court accepted the compliance filing from Apple, how could they be held in contempt of court?
Build a in house game engine Apple nothing good will come out of Unity or Epic you can't do business or rely on them over the long haul......Utter Madness do not be surprised if Apple in the back ground hasn't already green lighted project game engine, if the Apple bear didn't care before I think they do now.
Clean Hands build game engine from the ground up use no one with any ties to Epic or Unity.
Ok This guy. is just. crazy.
Epic would do much better for themselves in this world if they replaced the CEO. Sweeney is very busy building a reputation that Epic as a company is, as Apple said, an untrustworthy partner with an unstable CEO who wants everything his own way and nothing else will do. This makes other potential partners very wary, which will ultimately hurt Epic.
Pretty arrogant for a company with only one, maybe two products the average computer user can actually name.