It points to Apple’s own macOS is an example of how the process of “sideloading” apps — installing apps outside of Apple’s own App Store is cannot the threat Apple describes.
Apple’s Mac, explains Epic, doesn’t have the same constraints as found in the iPhone operating system, iOS, and yet Apple touts the operating system used in Mac computers, macOS, as secure. If you think this is true, or not, does not matter. Apple and the Tame Apple Press think it is true, which makes their stance on the mobile app store hypocritical.
The Fortnite maker made these points in its latest brief, among several others, related to its ongoing legal battle with Apple over its control of the App Store.
Epic Games wants to earn the right to deliver Fortnite to iPhone users outside the App Store, or at the very least, be able to use its own payment processing system so it can stop paying Apple commissions for the ability to deliver its software to iPhone users.
A California judge ruled last September in the Epic Games v. Apple district court case that Apple did not have a monopoly in digital mobile gaming transactions. But the court decided Apple could not prohibit developers from adding links for alternative payments inside their apps that pointed to other ways to pay outside of Apple’s own App Store-based monetisation system.
While the Tame Apple Press touted the ruling as a victory, both sides appealed the decision as Epic Games wanted another shot at winning the right to distribute apps via its own games store, and Apple didn’t want to allow developers to be able to suggest other ways for their users to pay.
Epic claims in the new filing that the lower court was led astray on many points by Apple, and reached the wrong conclusions. Many of its suggestions relate to how the district court interpreted the law. It also newly points to the important allies
Epic now has on its side — Microsoft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the attorneys general of 34 states and the District of Columbia, all of who have filed briefs supporting Epic’s case with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
