> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review. That should be more than enough to compensate the employees reviewing the apps to make sure outside payment links are not scams
I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient. Scammers will update the target of such links, so you can’t just check this at app submission time. You also will have to check from around the world, from different IP address ranges, outside California business hours, etc, because scammer are smart enough to use such info to decide whether to show their scammy page.
Also, even if it becomes ‘only’ hundreds of dollars, I guess only large companies will be able to afford providing an option for outside payments.
> CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees”
He seems to be ignoring the part of the ruling finding that Apple is entitled to "some compensation" for the use of its intellectual property.
> The appeals court recommends that the district court calculate a commission that is based on the costs that are necessary for its coordination of external links for linked-out purchases, along with "some compensation" for the use of its intellectual property. Costs should not include commission for security and privacy.
> I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient.
Ignoring the fact Apple isn't doing that anyway right now as others have pointed out:
There are multiple ways to make sure of that without it costing any significant money, eg hashing all scripts that are served on the link and making sure they're the same since review.
Not that they'd ever do the review to begin with, so the hashing won't be done either, but it's something that could be done on iOS/ipados.
And if you consider that infeasible, you might want to check out current CSP best practices, you might be surprised
> I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient.
According to the ruling on page 42, "(c) Apple should receive no commission for the security and privacy features it offers to external links, and its calculation of its necessary costs for external links should not include the cost associated with the security and privacy features it offers with its IAP"
> Apple should receive no commission for the security and privacy features it offers to external links
I'm not versed in legalese, so maybe I misunderstand. Isn't it reasonable that Apple receives money for a service they provide, that costs money to run?
The case is really about the opposite: "what payment related services is Apple allowed to force people to use (and therefore pay for)". The court concluded that excludes both the payment service itself as well as the validation of the security of external payment services used in its place.
A service to whom? Protecting users is a service to users, not to developers. This is a selling point of iPhone, and thus Apple receives money from users when they pay for the iPhone.
Think about it this way: totally free apps with no IAP get reviewed by Apple too, and there's no charge to the developer except the $99 Apple Developer Program membership fee, which Epic already pays too.
I agree, with maybe minor exceptions. It's probably reasonable that radio hardware can't trivially be reprogrammed to exceed regulated power limits. Or for stuff that is extremely safety critical like pacemakers (though I think for those things it should be mandatory to share source code).
I don’t feel great about this ruling. Whatever a “reasonable” fee is supposed to mean, Apple will interpret it to some ridiculous amount. Before the ban, they tried to charge 27%
They absolutely will and they will absolutely get away with it. It just won’t be anywhere close to 27%.
There has been craploads of litigation about “Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” licensing over the last two decades, and fees that are percentages of revenue with no cap have survived and there is no reason to believe any of these legal standards will change.
In fact, I think it’s likely that Apple and Google will team up to create a standards body that defines the method for distributing/installing smartphone apps (because this is now in their best interest, not that I want them to). These standards are going to end up using a bunch of patents that you will have to license on FRAND terms.
Yes, the cost is going to go down. Yes, Epic is going to benefit a lot more than any indie developer. Such is life
Yep, there's no reason to believe the fees will only be a few hundred dollars as Sweeney is saying, Apple will absolutely try to extract as much as possible without being sued again. The zero commissions for external links was the right approach.
I'm not even sure about that. This very ruling shows that Apple blatantly violated the law (the previous ruling) and tried to collect as much fee as possible while the case goes through the system.
And Apple isn't afraid of being sued. As long as they can earn more money in revenue than paying for lawyers, that's a net profit for them. They can certainly afford all of this.
It should be based on the app size, so maybe developers will stop shipping apps with a single feature and one button that takes 700 MB because of random bloated third-party SDKs that aren't even used.
I don't feel great either, but that's because prices aren't coming down, instead one billion dollar company just keeps more money than another billion (trillion I guess) dollar company, and we've lost some convenience features that Apple maintained, without any gain.
This is not only affects Epic. Basically any other app, game or SaaS developer can now earn more money because payment processing costing them 1-3% instead of 30%.
And small companies are hit by 30% platform tax the most. More money for small compsnies mean more competition.
Will this help other services like Netflix, Spotify? Or am I misreading things.
My understanding, at least several years ago, that Netflix was paying as much to Apple in subscription fees, as they did for their AWS hosting.
I also noticed when upgrading my Spotify account, I couldn't do that through the iphone app itself - I assumed this was because it would break TOS, or they didn't want to pay a massive chunck of the monthly subscription cost to Apple.
It's odd to celebrate having the key sanctions unwound.
Before this ruling:
1. Apple were prohibited from charging any fee for external/referral purchases. Now this is once again allowed and the district court will work with all parties to develop a reasonable commission.
2. External links were permitted to dominate over IAP options. Now they must have equal size, prominence and quantity.
3. Apple were prevented from showing any kind of exit screen, that is now restored (but it can't be a scare screen).
4. Apple were barred from preventing certain developers/app classes from using external links (such as those enrolled in the News or Video Partner Programs) those are now reversed and Apple can once again prevent them.
Epic/Tim Sweeney are trying to spin these recent losses as a win. It's the old marketing playbook of hoping no one reads the fine print.
Well yeah! A Nintendo switch or PlayStation is technically similar to an iPhone. But you can’t make the same monopolistic dealing argument there as you can on phones.
Why? Because a console is bought as a gaming device. And because you can reasonably have multiple consoles and there’s healthy competition between them.
In comparison, people buy a phone to have a phone. Then the App Store lock-in is tacked on the side. iPhone and Android compete on who has the best cameras. But once you’ve bought your phone, you’re trapped in the manufacturer’s App Store, who can charge monopolistic pricing. And normal people don’t buy multiple phones for different app stores.
The App Store monopoly is like if your electricity company somehow made it so you could only buy an Xbox. Games on steam and PlayStation aren’t compatible with the electricity in your house. And your friend down the street could only use a PlayStation. Not for any technical reason, but simply because locking you in to a single console manufacturer means they can make you pay way more for games. And you’ll pay it, because you don’t have a choice and can’t shop around.
The problem comes about because phones and app stores are glued together. They use a captive market created by one part of the business to trap consumers and developers elsewhere. If Google and Apple had to compete on app stores - like how Nintendo, PlayStation and Microsoft have to compete - then there’s no way Apple could get away with charging their extortionate 28% for App Store sales. If chrome charged a 28% commission on all purchases I made through the browser, everyone would switch to Firefox. Apps on my phone should be more like that.
I bought a console as a gaming device, but now my family mostly use it for YouTube and other streaming video. Similarly, relatively little of my phone time is used on phone calls. I think the distinction is mostly just locked in by history.
Because the three of them are all making their store business decisions outside of CA such that it's far harder to have California law applied to them?
I think the simpler answer is that Epic isn’t upset with the arrangement they have with Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony. They’ve done a better job cultivating a relationship with Epic than Apple has who seems to have only contempt for every other developer.
The "reasonable" fees are not gonna be only a few hundred bucks, it'll still be a percentage of revenue but smaller than 27%. Apple will try to extract as much as possible and will not tolerate a non-percentage fee.
> ... the appeals court now suggests that Apple should still be able to charge a “reasonable fee” based on its “actual costs to ensure user security and privacy.”
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review.
Wow, one step forward, and one step back. Good job, Epic.
The outcome is obviously going to be that Apple's store will have the most apps, with the most up to date versions, and with the most free apps/games. I'm sure Fortnite will do just fine though.
Unless I'm misunderstanding this, why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors?
> why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors
Yeah, this is the fundamental problem, and not something this court ruling does anything to fix. Apple has full control over what software its competitors are allowed to sell. The court's solution? Tell Apple to be more fair when dictating rules to its competitors. Yeah... I'm sure that'll work great.
Yep, on their platform. Just like Wal-Mart and Kroger have full control over what products their competitors are allowed to sell too (in-store versus name brands). Microsoft only makes and sells their games for example for the Windows platform and doesn't allow portability.
As a pattern there's nothing wrong with it.
The crux of the issue is that creation of a mobile operating system that people actually want, like in some other industries, as resulted in two dominant platforms that don't compete all that much with each other. That's a much more interesting and important "problem" to solve than Apple/Google create competing apps on their software distribution platforms.
My phone that I purchased is not "their" platform. Better analogy would be if Wal-Mart sold me a fridge and then somehow managed to make it so I can only store groceries purchased from Wal-Mart in that fridge. If I want to buy groceries from Kroger I need to buy a second fridge for that.
Because Epic hitched their real desire, we want to do digital distribution independent of Apple, to wanting alternative App Stores and alternative payment methods. And Apple responded with a scheme that does the latter without the former.
Sure you can use your own payment processor, we're still charging 27% though. Sure you can have your own App Store, you still have to go through the same review process though. It seems some of the cracks in this malicious compliance are starting to show.
There’s a Best Buy a few miles from my house. Why aren't I allowed to put my own products on their shelves, or set up a little folding table next to the phone accessories to sell my own cases?
It is not fair to me as a merchant that everyone who wants to buy a phone case goes to Best Buy. That's where all the foot traffic is. It's clearly anti-competitive that they expect me to pay for shelf space I benefit from.
And now they want to charge me to verify that the USB-C cables I'm selling actually work? How is that remotely reasonable? Just because most of my cables are faulty and customers will inevitably go complain to their customer service desk, why should I bear that cost?
Consumers deserve the right to choose accessories from multiple independent merchants inside Best Buy. Suggesting otherwise is anti-consumer, anti-choice, and proof that you hate open and accessible ecosystems.
For this analogy to be comparable, you would first have to consider that Best Buy, together with Walmart, owns 99.9999% of all store real estate in the world. You would also have to consider that the "shelf space" in this case is free and comes at zero cost to Best Buy; in fact, giving you virtual shelf space increases the amount of traffic that comes into their stores, resulting in a benefit to themselves.
Your analogy as presented was so lacking in merit you might as well have been talking about cats and leprechauns for how completely nonsensical it was to bring it up in the context of Apple.
Apple pays 100% of the tax on the service road to the stores and pays for the parking lot, though. They deserve some fee and that's what the courts said, right?
Will Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve and another software store have to allow mini stores on their platforms? That's to say software with its own payment system, inside of a free app?
Tim Cook has been absolutely fantastic for Apple shareholders and absolutely awful for anyone else, particularly the customers.
The walled garden has to end. There is no excuse for making people pay a premium price for an iPad Pro that can't run a third party web browser or do software development in any meaningful way.
Outside of a very narrow use case, the iPad product range is useless, despite the endless rantings of the brainwashed fanboys. Source: used to be one. Left the ecosystem when they started treating the RFCs like toilet paper.
At one point, there was a case for preventing scammy and fraudulent apps. For a long time, the ios App store had a much higher quality than android.
But now? There are tons of scammy and fraudulent apps on the app store. If you try to search for any popular app, you'll be presented with a dozen apps that look similar with similar names and logos.
And there are literally app farms pushing hundreds consealed illegal gambling / casino / betting apps to app store daily. Apple approves every single one.
They are then getting removed in days / weeks, but it just proves their review process is a joke.
> The walled garden has to end. There is no excuse for making people pay a premium price for an iPad Pro that can't run a third party web browser or do software development in any meaningful way.
Why?
There's an alternative: Android. I'm perfectly free to use that instead. I don't.
If I want to "do software development in any meaningful way", I'm not using a tablet. I'm using something with MacOS or GNU/Linux on it.
People willingly pay what Apple's charging for the iPad in the face of competition from a different OS and different classes of device, so I'm not really seeing the problem, especially when I can hand my technologically-handicapped 65-year-old mother an iPad and not have to worry as much about her installing something that will wreck every device on my parents' network or compromise her bank accounts or something.
Besides, the whole "locked-down device" wasn't Tim's idea, it was Steve's. There are plenty of reasons to gripe about Tim Cook, but "the iPad is too locked down" isn't one of them.
> There's an alternative: Android. I'm perfectly free to use that instead. I don't.
I think this is my entire problem with most of these conversations. When they say "The walled garden has to end." ... they mean "YOUR walled garden has to end.".
I also like the Walled Garden. Do I think Apple should be able to charge more than Stripe? No.
I wish they would stop conflating the gate keeping price to enter the walled garden being too high with the wall garden and the gate being a moral wrong.
I know! I was just out shopping for a towel and these armed gunmen grabbed me and pulled me into this store and held a gun to my kids head until I bought them a new iPad Pro M5. I am traumatized.
Oh, no, wait, I remember, my kid wanted an iPad Pro for their art and for school. They liked their wacom, but the iPad was more portable, and with the keyboard, it was perfect for taking notes.
I'm a consumer too and I despise having 20 different logins for each vendor to extract data from and the resulting increased exposure to identity theft. I'm grateful for Steam's dominance in the gaming space, my Playstation Sony account was hacked and was a nightmare cleaning up. It is not my job to care about developer margins, all the apps I care about are able to stay in business regardless of Apple's fees and if they cannot then they should charge more. I also dread the idea of having to spend time cleaning spammy "Patriot.Eagle App Store" from my elderly parent's devices if the walled garden is fully removed in the future, I know that shit is coming.
Hard disagree. Tim should focus on fixing their software. It has become extremely buggy and it needs to be fixed. No one buying an iPad cares about running some custom browser and supporting it is pointless and is what makes the software emote complex and worse. He should take better care of his paying customers rather than engaging with opinionated activists.
>For iOS 27 and next year’s other major operating system updates — including macOS 27 — the company is focused on improving the software’s quality and underlying performance.
-via Bloomberg -18d
Edit: almost can’t be true if they’re going to try to push Siri hard :-/
> Outside of a very narrow use case, the iPad product range is useless, despite the endless rantings of the brainwashed fanboys
The use case is rich iPhone users who want an easy experience to watch videos, read, or consume social media on a larger screen than their phones. It’s especially popular for the children or elderly parents of these rich people. You can argue this use case is narrow, but it’s decently profitable.
Just because this use case doesn’t apply to your experience doesn’t mean anyone who disagrees is a brainwashed fanboy.
I will agree that the iPad Pro range seems overly niche to me — but also it could be I just don’t understand the use case. If someone else finds it productive and pleasant to use, what difference does this make to me or you?
Tim Cook, or any CEO, is accountable to the shareholders, so job well done it seems. It's still the user's choice if they want to live in the walled garden or not, and lots of people do, so why would they change it?
I heart that at least in the US losing access to Facetime would be a serious loss in social status. So then this would be a real hurdle WRT user choice.
I think a 'real store' generally allows you to exchange money for something. If I wanted to sell software to Linux users, Steam is probably the closest thing to an 'app store' you could expect to find. Windows has the Microsoft Store, and Macs have the Apple Store.
insist on Apple IAP links/buttons to be the same as buttons/links to external payments. But they can't ask for the outgoing links/buttons to be less prominent
charge for links/buttons to external payment, but not as they please. One interpretation is that it has to be based on real cost and can't in any way be tied to IAP costs.
It could be argued that it was part of "embrace, extend, extinguish" to attract developers to the platform by keeping it open. They would just figure out how to capitalize on anything that got big enough, much like Google.
Apple really pioneered the walled garden (which I would assume was previously taken to be shooting yourself in the foot), and it's proven to resonate with the wider less tech-savvy population.
Downloading software over dial-up speeds of 14.4 kbps to 28.8 kbps sucked, and most businesses weren't large enterprises so didn't have T1s (which were themselves only 1.5 Mbps) so sending the office manager across town to Circuit City to buy a boxed copy of some piece of software made sense. The app stores of the 90s were "third party" and physical and covered the needs and capabilities of 90s companies. The other "app store" was even more indirect, software makers paying PC sellers to pre-install.
> And you don't need the internet to sell applications.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I don't know how you'd sell them otherwise. How do you do you process a payment without a network connection? The only thing I can think of is offering a catalog in the OS which users could browse and physically order stuff from, but I wouldn't call that a store.
>Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I don't know how you'd sell them otherwise. How do you do you process a payment without a network connection? The only thing I can think of is offering a catalog in the OS which users could browse and physically order stuff from, but I wouldn't call that a store.
Not GP but, processing payments absolutely does not require a network connection. Doing so is absolutely not nearly as convenient, but in my adult lifetime it was pretty normal for retailers to pick up a phone, give a customer service rep and/or automated call handler CC info and dollar amounts and get appropriate confirmations.
As for a business without an OS interface not being a "store," that's ridiculous on its face. If that were true, we'd have to call 7/11 or any similar place (like those at most gas stations) convenience "locations with items for sale but not a store, because stores are only places with catalogs in my OS," and "places which sell stuff but aren't stores because rimunroe says they can't be a 'store' without a catalog in their OS."
It feels like courts are not doing a good job promoting "competition".
- Apple shouldn't be able to charge for external payments, come on.
- Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does. Epic knows exactly how predatory that is, betting some kids will find ways to spend thousands and the parents will be helpless. Ideally you'd have a law mandating refunds, but without that, there should be mandatory disclosure on the IAP screen, at least for microtransaction games. You can't have fair "competition" when you have an information asymmetry, and if these rulings don't mandate that, you'll open the floodgate for these gaming companies to screw over parents.
Antitrust laws were written in the early 1900s and updated through the 1950s. Credit cards weren't available until 1966 and didn't become widely used until the 1990s. Digital platforms weren't a thing until the late 90s/early 2000s and the Apple app store didn't exist until 2008.
The courts can only enforce the laws on the books. Congress needs to update the laws, but they won't because they are hopelessly corrupt :(
Lina Khan did try and regulate. She had some successes, but the major cases w/r/t concentration of power against Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple have all moved slowly and (so far) failed to result in break ups.
> - Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does.
Apple has no official App Store refund policy, either for IAP or for upfront paid apps. I've already looked for one. There's of course a form to request a refund, but refunds are entirely at Apple's discretion, for any reason or no reason, and Apple often exercises its discretion to refuse refunds.
The App Store was built on iTunes and used the same backend. The refund process hasn’t changed since then. Funny enough before the App Store you could buy Apple curated apps for your iPod.
Have you heard reports of Apple not granting refunds?
Why shouldn't Apple be able to charge whatever the fuck they want on their own platform, while users of their platform can? Now Sweeney can sell vbux to kids and Apple has to just grin and bear it?
Apple needs to be broken up and separated from the App Store. Apple sells devices, and I buy one expecting to own it outright. When you own something, you should be able to install whatever you want without interference from Apple.
How is the iPhone different from the Macs? I can install anything I want from any source on the Mac, but I can't do that on the iPhone. Doesn't make any sense.
Microsoft, for all their faults, gave us an actual operating system that people could build and distribute executables on as they saw fit with no restrictions, and they did it despite the fact that they owned almost the entire personal computing space.
Imagine Microsoft had charged everyone who distributed a Windows executable 30%, they'd have made trillions by now. Bill Gates said once that Microsoft has captured maybe 1% of the value that people have created on top of their software because they don't insert themselves between what users do with each other and I do think they actually deserve some props for that
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review. That should be more than enough to compensate the employees reviewing the apps to make sure outside payment links are not scams
I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient. Scammers will update the target of such links, so you can’t just check this at app submission time. You also will have to check from around the world, from different IP address ranges, outside California business hours, etc, because scammer are smart enough to use such info to decide whether to show their scammy page.
Also, even if it becomes ‘only’ hundreds of dollars, I guess only large companies will be able to afford providing an option for outside payments.
I don't believe iOS app reviewers actually do any of that, even if on paper they do.
They don't need to check outside payment links, until recently (I doubt they do though).
> CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees”
He seems to be ignoring the part of the ruling finding that Apple is entitled to "some compensation" for the use of its intellectual property.
> The appeals court recommends that the district court calculate a commission that is based on the costs that are necessary for its coordination of external links for linked-out purchases, along with "some compensation" for the use of its intellectual property. Costs should not include commission for security and privacy.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/11/apple-app-store-fees-ex...
Apple wanted 27% and Epic thinks it should be 0%. The lower court will have to pick a number in between the two.
Maybe next they can decide what Epic’s 12% fee for their own marketplace should be
I get your point, but looking at it at a glance without any other context, 12% feels like a pretty reasonable amount IMHO.
Like, if all major marketplaces only charge 12% from the get-go, we probably would have had much less fuss and lawsuits over this.
This issue was always the disproportionate size of the fee, not the fact that they charge a fee.
How about making it 10%? As a modern-day "tithe".
> I guess only large companies will be able to afford providing an option for outside payments
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/introducing-epic-web-...
> I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient. Ignoring the fact Apple isn't doing that anyway right now as others have pointed out: There are multiple ways to make sure of that without it costing any significant money, eg hashing all scripts that are served on the link and making sure they're the same since review.
Not that they'd ever do the review to begin with, so the hashing won't be done either, but it's something that could be done on iOS/ipados.
And if you consider that infeasible, you might want to check out current CSP best practices, you might be surprised
But Apple does not currently constantly check apps for changing links. I see no change here.
> I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient.
According to the ruling on page 42, "(c) Apple should receive no commission for the security and privacy features it offers to external links, and its calculation of its necessary costs for external links should not include the cost associated with the security and privacy features it offers with its IAP"
> Apple should receive no commission for the security and privacy features it offers to external links
I'm not versed in legalese, so maybe I misunderstand. Isn't it reasonable that Apple receives money for a service they provide, that costs money to run?
The case is really about the opposite: "what payment related services is Apple allowed to force people to use (and therefore pay for)". The court concluded that excludes both the payment service itself as well as the validation of the security of external payment services used in its place.
A service to whom? Protecting users is a service to users, not to developers. This is a selling point of iPhone, and thus Apple receives money from users when they pay for the iPhone.
Think about it this way: totally free apps with no IAP get reviewed by Apple too, and there's no charge to the developer except the $99 Apple Developer Program membership fee, which Epic already pays too.
Protecting users is absolutely in the best interest of developers.
Forcing developers to go through Apple's arbitrary, capricious, slow review process is absolutely not in the best interest of developers.
In my opinion, every manufacturer of a programmable device should not be allowed to prevent the buyer from reprogramming it.
I agree, with maybe minor exceptions. It's probably reasonable that radio hardware can't trivially be reprogrammed to exceed regulated power limits. Or for stuff that is extremely safety critical like pacemakers (though I think for those things it should be mandatory to share source code).
I don’t feel great about this ruling. Whatever a “reasonable” fee is supposed to mean, Apple will interpret it to some ridiculous amount. Before the ban, they tried to charge 27%
I think Apple will have a very hard time arguing that the "reasonable" amount is a percentage of revenue with no cap.
They absolutely will and they will absolutely get away with it. It just won’t be anywhere close to 27%.
There has been craploads of litigation about “Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” licensing over the last two decades, and fees that are percentages of revenue with no cap have survived and there is no reason to believe any of these legal standards will change.
In fact, I think it’s likely that Apple and Google will team up to create a standards body that defines the method for distributing/installing smartphone apps (because this is now in their best interest, not that I want them to). These standards are going to end up using a bunch of patents that you will have to license on FRAND terms.
Yes, the cost is going to go down. Yes, Epic is going to benefit a lot more than any indie developer. Such is life
Yep, there's no reason to believe the fees will only be a few hundred dollars as Sweeney is saying, Apple will absolutely try to extract as much as possible without being sued again. The zero commissions for external links was the right approach.
> ... without being sued again
I'm not even sure about that. This very ruling shows that Apple blatantly violated the law (the previous ruling) and tried to collect as much fee as possible while the case goes through the system.
And Apple isn't afraid of being sued. As long as they can earn more money in revenue than paying for lawyers, that's a net profit for them. They can certainly afford all of this.
This isn't related to what's fair in licensing, comparing it as such is Apples to oranges.
Just you wait
I'm not disagreeing on the conclusion, this argument of why was just not supportive of it.
It should be based on the app size, so maybe developers will stop shipping apps with a single feature and one button that takes 700 MB because of random bloated third-party SDKs that aren't even used.
I don't feel great either, but that's because prices aren't coming down, instead one billion dollar company just keeps more money than another billion (trillion I guess) dollar company, and we've lost some convenience features that Apple maintained, without any gain.
This is not only affects Epic. Basically any other app, game or SaaS developer can now earn more money because payment processing costing them 1-3% instead of 30%.
And small companies are hit by 30% platform tax the most. More money for small compsnies mean more competition.
Will this help other services like Netflix, Spotify? Or am I misreading things.
My understanding, at least several years ago, that Netflix was paying as much to Apple in subscription fees, as they did for their AWS hosting.
I also noticed when upgrading my Spotify account, I couldn't do that through the iphone app itself - I assumed this was because it would break TOS, or they didn't want to pay a massive chunck of the monthly subscription cost to Apple.
Apple relaxed these rules shortly after the initial Epic vs Apple lawsuit: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/02/tech/apple-app-store-changes-...
Apologies for being unable to find a better source at the moment, but it links to this press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/09/japan-fair-trade-comm...
Netflix and Spotify haven't paid Apple a cut for years. Customers pay subscription fees to them directly and Apple doesn't get a dime.
Their problem is that you cannot (could not) sign up for an account from the iPhone app.
“You download the app and it doesn’t work, that’s not what we want on the store” https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-...
Shared the same in a comment below, but probably worth adding as a top level comment.
Google are doing exactly the same as Apple previously were doing, mandatory from end of next month - January 28, 2026.
Their new requirements: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
The US court order still remains in effect afaik, so not in the US.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
It's odd to celebrate having the key sanctions unwound.
Before this ruling:
1. Apple were prohibited from charging any fee for external/referral purchases. Now this is once again allowed and the district court will work with all parties to develop a reasonable commission.
2. External links were permitted to dominate over IAP options. Now they must have equal size, prominence and quantity.
3. Apple were prevented from showing any kind of exit screen, that is now restored (but it can't be a scare screen).
4. Apple were barred from preventing certain developers/app classes from using external links (such as those enrolled in the News or Video Partner Programs) those are now reversed and Apple can once again prevent them.
Epic/Tim Sweeney are trying to spin these recent losses as a win. It's the old marketing playbook of hoping no one reads the fine print.
While having Epic Store, Fortnite "mini store", and being perfectly fine with Nintendo, Sony and XBox.
Well yeah! A Nintendo switch or PlayStation is technically similar to an iPhone. But you can’t make the same monopolistic dealing argument there as you can on phones.
Why? Because a console is bought as a gaming device. And because you can reasonably have multiple consoles and there’s healthy competition between them.
In comparison, people buy a phone to have a phone. Then the App Store lock-in is tacked on the side. iPhone and Android compete on who has the best cameras. But once you’ve bought your phone, you’re trapped in the manufacturer’s App Store, who can charge monopolistic pricing. And normal people don’t buy multiple phones for different app stores.
The App Store monopoly is like if your electricity company somehow made it so you could only buy an Xbox. Games on steam and PlayStation aren’t compatible with the electricity in your house. And your friend down the street could only use a PlayStation. Not for any technical reason, but simply because locking you in to a single console manufacturer means they can make you pay way more for games. And you’ll pay it, because you don’t have a choice and can’t shop around.
The problem comes about because phones and app stores are glued together. They use a captive market created by one part of the business to trap consumers and developers elsewhere. If Google and Apple had to compete on app stores - like how Nintendo, PlayStation and Microsoft have to compete - then there’s no way Apple could get away with charging their extortionate 28% for App Store sales. If chrome charged a 28% commission on all purchases I made through the browser, everyone would switch to Firefox. Apps on my phone should be more like that.
I bought a console as a gaming device, but now my family mostly use it for YouTube and other streaming video. Similarly, relatively little of my phone time is used on phone calls. I think the distinction is mostly just locked in by history.
Why do you think Epic is okay with Nintendo, Sony, and XBox?
Because Epic is doing something much closer to those companies and restraints on what they can do would likely affect Epic as well.
Because the three of them are all making their store business decisions outside of CA such that it's far harder to have California law applied to them?
Epic also sued both Google and Apple in Australia, which is notably outside of CA.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/australia-court-rul...
I think the simpler answer is that Epic isn’t upset with the arrangement they have with Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony. They’ve done a better job cultivating a relationship with Epic than Apple has who seems to have only contempt for every other developer.
https://direct.playstation.com/en-gb/buy-consoles/playstatio...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ubcwin-Switch-Fortnite-Wildcat-Bund...
Epic store has the lowest royalties by a hefty margin
David vs Goliath - well done epic
The "reasonable" fees are not gonna be only a few hundred bucks, it'll still be a percentage of revenue but smaller than 27%. Apple will try to extract as much as possible and will not tolerate a non-percentage fee.
I don’t see how they could argue for a percentage of revenue model while mandated to do this based on costs?
It's Apple, see their malicious compliance until nowand is don't expect it'll be any different in the future, they're gonna argue one way or another.
> ... the appeals court now suggests that Apple should still be able to charge a “reasonable fee” based on its “actual costs to ensure user security and privacy.”
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review.
Wow, one step forward, and one step back. Good job, Epic.
The outcome is obviously going to be that Apple's store will have the most apps, with the most up to date versions, and with the most free apps/games. I'm sure Fortnite will do just fine though.
Unless I'm misunderstanding this, why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors?
> why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors
Yeah, this is the fundamental problem, and not something this court ruling does anything to fix. Apple has full control over what software its competitors are allowed to sell. The court's solution? Tell Apple to be more fair when dictating rules to its competitors. Yeah... I'm sure that'll work great.
Yep, on their platform. Just like Wal-Mart and Kroger have full control over what products their competitors are allowed to sell too (in-store versus name brands). Microsoft only makes and sells their games for example for the Windows platform and doesn't allow portability.
As a pattern there's nothing wrong with it.
The crux of the issue is that creation of a mobile operating system that people actually want, like in some other industries, as resulted in two dominant platforms that don't compete all that much with each other. That's a much more interesting and important "problem" to solve than Apple/Google create competing apps on their software distribution platforms.
My phone that I purchased is not "their" platform. Better analogy would be if Wal-Mart sold me a fridge and then somehow managed to make it so I can only store groceries purchased from Wal-Mart in that fridge. If I want to buy groceries from Kroger I need to buy a second fridge for that.
Because Epic hitched their real desire, we want to do digital distribution independent of Apple, to wanting alternative App Stores and alternative payment methods. And Apple responded with a scheme that does the latter without the former.
Sure you can use your own payment processor, we're still charging 27% though. Sure you can have your own App Store, you still have to go through the same review process though. It seems some of the cracks in this malicious compliance are starting to show.
There’s a Best Buy a few miles from my house. Why aren't I allowed to put my own products on their shelves, or set up a little folding table next to the phone accessories to sell my own cases?
It is not fair to me as a merchant that everyone who wants to buy a phone case goes to Best Buy. That's where all the foot traffic is. It's clearly anti-competitive that they expect me to pay for shelf space I benefit from.
And now they want to charge me to verify that the USB-C cables I'm selling actually work? How is that remotely reasonable? Just because most of my cables are faulty and customers will inevitably go complain to their customer service desk, why should I bear that cost?
Consumers deserve the right to choose accessories from multiple independent merchants inside Best Buy. Suggesting otherwise is anti-consumer, anti-choice, and proof that you hate open and accessible ecosystems.
For this analogy to be comparable, you would first have to consider that Best Buy, together with Walmart, owns 99.9999% of all store real estate in the world. You would also have to consider that the "shelf space" in this case is free and comes at zero cost to Best Buy; in fact, giving you virtual shelf space increases the amount of traffic that comes into their stores, resulting in a benefit to themselves.
Your analogy as presented was so lacking in merit you might as well have been talking about cats and leprechauns for how completely nonsensical it was to bring it up in the context of Apple.
Best buy owns their store. I own my phone. You can open a store next door to best buy, thats what epic wants to be allowed to do on ios.
Apple pays 100% of the tax on the service road to the stores and pays for the parking lot, though. They deserve some fee and that's what the courts said, right?
Will Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve and another software store have to allow mini stores on their platforms? That's to say software with its own payment system, inside of a free app?
Valve already provides a store inside someone else's platform.
One can only hope.
Tim Cook has been absolutely fantastic for Apple shareholders and absolutely awful for anyone else, particularly the customers.
The walled garden has to end. There is no excuse for making people pay a premium price for an iPad Pro that can't run a third party web browser or do software development in any meaningful way.
Outside of a very narrow use case, the iPad product range is useless, despite the endless rantings of the brainwashed fanboys. Source: used to be one. Left the ecosystem when they started treating the RFCs like toilet paper.
At one point, there was a case for preventing scammy and fraudulent apps. For a long time, the ios App store had a much higher quality than android.
But now? There are tons of scammy and fraudulent apps on the app store. If you try to search for any popular app, you'll be presented with a dozen apps that look similar with similar names and logos.
Like when you search for anything "AI" and get bombarded with a wall of minimalist goatse
Also: gambling apps. Legal, sure, but also incredibly scammy.
And there are literally app farms pushing hundreds consealed illegal gambling / casino / betting apps to app store daily. Apple approves every single one.
They are then getting removed in days / weeks, but it just proves their review process is a joke.
Apple's "manual review" process stopped meaning anything to me when they verified a trojan horse version of LastPass: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
I don't even know how this is possible. FOSS repos have more security than that...
> The walled garden has to end. There is no excuse for making people pay a premium price for an iPad Pro that can't run a third party web browser or do software development in any meaningful way.
Why?
There's an alternative: Android. I'm perfectly free to use that instead. I don't.
If I want to "do software development in any meaningful way", I'm not using a tablet. I'm using something with MacOS or GNU/Linux on it.
People willingly pay what Apple's charging for the iPad in the face of competition from a different OS and different classes of device, so I'm not really seeing the problem, especially when I can hand my technologically-handicapped 65-year-old mother an iPad and not have to worry as much about her installing something that will wreck every device on my parents' network or compromise her bank accounts or something.
Besides, the whole "locked-down device" wasn't Tim's idea, it was Steve's. There are plenty of reasons to gripe about Tim Cook, but "the iPad is too locked down" isn't one of them.
> There's an alternative: Android. I'm perfectly free to use that instead. I don't.
I think this is my entire problem with most of these conversations. When they say "The walled garden has to end." ... they mean "YOUR walled garden has to end.".
I also like the Walled Garden. Do I think Apple should be able to charge more than Stripe? No.
I wish they would stop conflating the gate keeping price to enter the walled garden being too high with the wall garden and the gate being a moral wrong.
>There is no excuse for making people pay
I know! I was just out shopping for a towel and these armed gunmen grabbed me and pulled me into this store and held a gun to my kids head until I bought them a new iPad Pro M5. I am traumatized.
Oh, no, wait, I remember, my kid wanted an iPad Pro for their art and for school. They liked their wacom, but the iPad was more portable, and with the keyboard, it was perfect for taking notes.
I'm a consumer too and I despise having 20 different logins for each vendor to extract data from and the resulting increased exposure to identity theft. I'm grateful for Steam's dominance in the gaming space, my Playstation Sony account was hacked and was a nightmare cleaning up. It is not my job to care about developer margins, all the apps I care about are able to stay in business regardless of Apple's fees and if they cannot then they should charge more. I also dread the idea of having to spend time cleaning spammy "Patriot.Eagle App Store" from my elderly parent's devices if the walled garden is fully removed in the future, I know that shit is coming.
Hard disagree. Tim should focus on fixing their software. It has become extremely buggy and it needs to be fixed. No one buying an iPad cares about running some custom browser and supporting it is pointless and is what makes the software emote complex and worse. He should take better care of his paying customers rather than engaging with opinionated activists.
You hopeful for this? Per Gurman:
>For iOS 27 and next year’s other major operating system updates — including macOS 27 — the company is focused on improving the software’s quality and underlying performance.
-via Bloomberg -18d
Edit: almost can’t be true if they’re going to try to push Siri hard :-/
> Outside of a very narrow use case, the iPad product range is useless, despite the endless rantings of the brainwashed fanboys
The use case is rich iPhone users who want an easy experience to watch videos, read, or consume social media on a larger screen than their phones. It’s especially popular for the children or elderly parents of these rich people. You can argue this use case is narrow, but it’s decently profitable.
Just because this use case doesn’t apply to your experience doesn’t mean anyone who disagrees is a brainwashed fanboy.
I will agree that the iPad Pro range seems overly niche to me — but also it could be I just don’t understand the use case. If someone else finds it productive and pleasant to use, what difference does this make to me or you?
Tim Cook, or any CEO, is accountable to the shareholders, so job well done it seems. It's still the user's choice if they want to live in the walled garden or not, and lots of people do, so why would they change it?
I heart that at least in the US losing access to Facetime would be a serious loss in social status. So then this would be a real hurdle WRT user choice.
Peripheral question: Is there any "real" App Store on Linux except for Steam?
Not sure what you mean. apt-get, yum, and even things like snap act like app stores for free apps, no?
It's only a real "App-Store" if it has arbitrary restrictions and you must pay fees to a company, obviously.
I think a 'real store' generally allows you to exchange money for something. If I wanted to sell software to Linux users, Steam is probably the closest thing to an 'app store' you could expect to find. Windows has the Microsoft Store, and Macs have the Apple Store.
Even with a non-free package, simply add the repository and you're ready to install it.
Are these the same thing? Different framing, confusing details:
Apple wins partial reversal of sanctions in Epic Games antitrust lawsuit
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... (https://archive.ph/Cbi3f)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237312
The ruling says Apple can:
insist on Apple IAP links/buttons to be the same as buttons/links to external payments. But they can't ask for the outgoing links/buttons to be less prominent
charge for links/buttons to external payment, but not as they please. One interpretation is that it has to be based on real cost and can't in any way be tied to IAP costs.
can't use scare screens on external purchases
>Are these the same thing?
Both articles appear to point at the same 9th circuit appeals court ruling:
The Ars piece points at:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/US-Co...
Which appears to be the same ruling as the Reuters piece links to:
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/lgvdqxweopo/...
As such, I believe that, yes, this is the same ruling reported by both Ars and Reuters.
Well, yeah..
Devil's always in the details. But in this instance, any even partial win is still a win. Something is better than nothing.
Why didn't Microsoft, back in the 90s, have an app store that businesses had to pay for to sell Windows applications in?
I mean, it's certainly not for lack of business insight. And you don't need the internet to sell applications.
It could be argued that it was part of "embrace, extend, extinguish" to attract developers to the platform by keeping it open. They would just figure out how to capitalize on anything that got big enough, much like Google.
Apple really pioneered the walled garden (which I would assume was previously taken to be shooting yourself in the foot), and it's proven to resonate with the wider less tech-savvy population.
Downloading software over dial-up speeds of 14.4 kbps to 28.8 kbps sucked, and most businesses weren't large enterprises so didn't have T1s (which were themselves only 1.5 Mbps) so sending the office manager across town to Circuit City to buy a boxed copy of some piece of software made sense. The app stores of the 90s were "third party" and physical and covered the needs and capabilities of 90s companies. The other "app store" was even more indirect, software makers paying PC sellers to pre-install.
> And you don't need the internet to sell applications.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I don't know how you'd sell them otherwise. How do you do you process a payment without a network connection? The only thing I can think of is offering a catalog in the OS which users could browse and physically order stuff from, but I wouldn't call that a store.
>Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I don't know how you'd sell them otherwise. How do you do you process a payment without a network connection? The only thing I can think of is offering a catalog in the OS which users could browse and physically order stuff from, but I wouldn't call that a store.
Not GP but, processing payments absolutely does not require a network connection. Doing so is absolutely not nearly as convenient, but in my adult lifetime it was pretty normal for retailers to pick up a phone, give a customer service rep and/or automated call handler CC info and dollar amounts and get appropriate confirmations.
As for a business without an OS interface not being a "store," that's ridiculous on its face. If that were true, we'd have to call 7/11 or any similar place (like those at most gas stations) convenience "locations with items for sale but not a store, because stores are only places with catalogs in my OS," and "places which sell stuff but aren't stores because rimunroe says they can't be a 'store' without a catalog in their OS."
Touch grass, friend.
Original Title (too long for title box):
Epic celebrates “the end of the Apple Tax” after appeals court win in iOS payments case
It feels like courts are not doing a good job promoting "competition".
- Apple shouldn't be able to charge for external payments, come on.
- Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does. Epic knows exactly how predatory that is, betting some kids will find ways to spend thousands and the parents will be helpless. Ideally you'd have a law mandating refunds, but without that, there should be mandatory disclosure on the IAP screen, at least for microtransaction games. You can't have fair "competition" when you have an information asymmetry, and if these rulings don't mandate that, you'll open the floodgate for these gaming companies to screw over parents.
Antitrust laws were written in the early 1900s and updated through the 1950s. Credit cards weren't available until 1966 and didn't become widely used until the 1990s. Digital platforms weren't a thing until the late 90s/early 2000s and the Apple app store didn't exist until 2008.
The courts can only enforce the laws on the books. Congress needs to update the laws, but they won't because they are hopelessly corrupt :(
A lot of laws don't need updating.
Courts don't allow you to submit false evidence yet somehow they need to update their produces to handle AI generated false submissions?
The issue is enforcement. Plain and simple. The anti-trust on the books are fine; no more amount of written laws will make regulators regulate.
Lina Khan did try and regulate. She had some successes, but the major cases w/r/t concentration of power against Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple have all moved slowly and (so far) failed to result in break ups.
> - Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does.
Apple has no official App Store refund policy, either for IAP or for upfront paid apps. I've already looked for one. There's of course a form to request a refund, but refunds are entirely at Apple's discretion, for any reason or no reason, and Apple often exercises its discretion to refuse refunds.
I have never had Apple to refuse a refund and I’ve had an iTunes account since 2003
> I have never had Apple to refuse a refund
Good for you, but you're only one user out of more than a billion.
> I’ve had an iTunes account since 2003
I'm not sure how that's relevant, because the App Store opened in 2008. Also, Apple had a different CEO at the time.
The App Store was built on iTunes and used the same backend. The refund process hasn’t changed since then. Funny enough before the App Store you could buy Apple curated apps for your iPod.
Have you heard reports of Apple not granting refunds?
> The App Store was built on iTunes and used the same backend. The refund process hasn’t changed since then.
I'm not talking about the technical process. Like I already said, "There's of course a form to request a refund".
> Have you heard reports of Apple not granting refunds?
Yes, many. Indeed, I've heard it from my own customers, as I'm an App Store developer myself.
Why shouldn't Apple be able to charge whatever the fuck they want on their own platform, while users of their platform can? Now Sweeney can sell vbux to kids and Apple has to just grin and bear it?
Apple needs to be broken up and separated from the App Store. Apple sells devices, and I buy one expecting to own it outright. When you own something, you should be able to install whatever you want without interference from Apple.
How is the iPhone different from the Macs? I can install anything I want from any source on the Mac, but I can't do that on the iPhone. Doesn't make any sense.
Because they’re forcing people to use their platform
Apple can go to hell, their 30% fee is prohibitive.
If Jobs was still here, he would have fired all the fat management.
shame on you Apple, you are acting like M$!
Why would jobs of all people have an issue with that?
>shame on you Apple, you are acting like M$!
Microsoft, for all their faults, gave us an actual operating system that people could build and distribute executables on as they saw fit with no restrictions, and they did it despite the fact that they owned almost the entire personal computing space.
Imagine Microsoft had charged everyone who distributed a Windows executable 30%, they'd have made trillions by now. Bill Gates said once that Microsoft has captured maybe 1% of the value that people have created on top of their software because they don't insert themselves between what users do with each other and I do think they actually deserve some props for that
Now let’s ban all probabilistic digital items like loot boxes.
Are they still much of a thing? I was vaguely aware of epic dropping them years ago for Fortnite.
Different from gacha at least.
Now I wonder what this will do to Google ? IIRC, they have been looking into a similar extortion fee for Android Developers.
I received an e-mail earlier this week saying that their new policies will be mandatory by January 28, 2026.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
It's incredibly similar to what Apple had before.
"Sweeney wrote on social media." with a link to X.
What a strange choice of words I though, clicked on author name:
"You can find his irregular musings on BlueSky: @kyleor.land.".
I see.
Sorry what's strange about the choice of words "Sweeney wrote on social media"?
Kind of the same thing as "it was reported in a newspaper." It would normally be expected of a journalist to cite the specific source if they can.
Journalists love to be vague about sources so you don't go to the source.
Sure, there's a lot of that around, but I wouldn't call it journalism. Clickbait maybe.
Nothing; it is all trash.
I mean, they also didn't say "Sweeney wrote (using his Logitech keyboard) on X". The link is right there, I don't see why it matters.