Neither Apple nor Epic Games were happy with the 2021 ruling.
The long-running legal dispute between Apple and Epic Games finally reached a verdict two years ago. But the battle, which began when Epic bypassed Apple’s 30 percent cut for in-app purchases and Apple responded by booting Fortnite out of the App Store, is far from over. And now it’s headed to the highest court in the land.
Given that Apple hailed Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ 2021 ruling as “a huge win,” it was no surprise when Epic filed an appeal. Less predictably, Apple appealed too. In a filing this week, Apple attorneys argued that the court overreached in issuing a broad nationwide injunction applying to all developers, rather than just Epic. Maybe it wasn’t such a huge win after all.
While the judge ruled in Apple’s favor on nine counts, the Cupertino company was unhappy about the 10th: this one went in Epic’s favor, with the result that Apple was “permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms.
