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

The highly-anticipated Epic Games vs. Apple trial started today in a federal court in Oakland, California, with lawyers 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, keeping in mind that developers are forced to utilize Apples in-app purchase system, and therefore pay Apple a 30% commission on sales. (The rate drops to 15% for subscriptions after the first year and for qualifying developers who sign up for Apples brand-new Small Business Program and earn less than $1 million per fiscal year in net profits.).
Legendary Games explained the App Store as a “walled garden” and provided e-mails from present and previous Apple executives like Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, and Scott Forstall in an attempt to prove this claim.
Impressive Games desires Apple to be forced to enable third-party app stores on iOS and to let designers provide direct payment systems, however Apple argued that a single, highly-curated App Store is required to protect the security, personal privacy, reliability, and quality that consumers have actually come to anticipate from the company.
” Epic desires us to be Android, but we dont want to be,” said Apple lawyer Karen Dunn, referring to the ability to sideload apps beyond the Google Play shop on Android gadgets. “Our customers do not want that either,” she included.
Impressive Games is the creator of popular battle royale game Fortnite, which Apple removed from the App Store in August 2020, soon after Epic Games slyly introduced 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 business of anti-competitive behavior.
At the time, Apple said Epic Games “took the regrettable step of breaking the App Store guidelines that are applied equally to every developer and developed to keep the store safe for our users,” including that it would “strive to work with Epic to fix these offenses so they can return Fortnite to the App Store.” Impressive Games has declined to comply, nevertheless, and Fortnite stays not available on the App Store.
Impressive Games CEO Tim Sweeney testified at the trial today, stating that by presenting the direct payment option, he wanted customers to see that Apple works out “overall control” over iOS and software offered on the platform.
The trial is anticipated to continue for an overall of 3 weeks, with Apples CEO Tim Cook and other executives expected to testify.