Apple Says Epic Games ‘Wants Us to Be Android, But We Don’t Want to Be’

The highly-anticipated Epic Games vs. Apple trial began today in a federal court in Oakland, California, with attorneys for both business providing opening remarks prior to District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Attorneys for Epic Games tried to paint the App Store as anti-competitive and monopolistic, noting that designers are required to use Apples in-app purchase system, and hence pay Apple a 30% commission on sales. (The rate drops to 15% for memberships after the first year and for qualifying designers who register for Apples new Small Business Program and earn less than $1 million per calendar year in net income.).
Legendary Games explained the App Store as a “walled garden” and provided e-mails from former and present Apple executives like Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, and Scott Forstall in an attempt to show this claim.
Epic Games wants Apple to be forced to enable third-party app stores on iOS and to let developers provide direct payment systems, but Apple argued that a single, highly-curated App Store is required to protect the security, personal privacy, reliability, and quality that clients have actually come to anticipate from the company.
” Epic wants us to be Android, but we dont wish to be,” said Apple lawyer Karen Dunn, referring to the ability to sideload apps outside of the Google Play shop on Android gadgets. “Our customers dont desire that either,” she added.
Legendary Games is the creator of popular battle royale game Fortnite, which Apple got rid of from the App Store in August 2020, shortly after Epic Games slyly presented a direct payment option in the app, in defiance of the App Store guidelines. Epic Games then filed an orchestrated lawsuit versus Apple, implicating the company of anti-competitive habits.
At the time, Apple said Epic Games “took the unfortunate action of breaking the App Store guidelines that are applied equally to every designer and developed to keep the shop safe for our users,” including that it would “strive to work with Epic to solve these offenses so they can return Fortnite to the App Store.” Impressive Games has declined to comply, however, and Fortnite remains not available on the App Store.
Legendary Games CEO Tim Sweeney affirmed at the trial today, saying that by introducing the direct payment choice, he desired consumers to see that Apple exercises “overall control” over iOS and software readily available on the platform.
The trial is anticipated to continue for an overall of three weeks, with Apples CEO Tim Cook and other executives anticipated to testify.