Apple has appealed Epic's Epic trial, which could cost billions of dollars and partial control of the App Store. While Apple largely won the case (the company even called it a "complete victory") and Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled in apple's favor on nine of Epic's ten claims against apple, Apple did lose in one important respect: The judge found That Apple had violated California's anti-diversion rules and ordered Apple to allow developers to connect to external payment systems. It was supposed to take effect in December but could be rolled out after that — which seems to be the point.
Apple asked to stay and prevent the company from implementing the new anti-steering rule, arguing that it "would allow Apple to protect consumers and maintain its platform while the company is working through complex and rapidly evolving legal, technical, and economic issues."If we read this correctly, the company's argument is telling.
For example, Apple claims that the new anti-steering rules are unnecessary because, in the Cameron v. Apple settlement, the company has agreed to remove offending sections of its
App Store guide, but that's news to us: At the time, Apple only agreed to a "clarification" that would allow app developers to communicate with consenting customers rather than connect to an external payment system. Developers generally see this clarification as a red herring. At the time, Apple didn't say it was going to completely remove parts of the App Store guide.
There are many unanswered questions about how well Apple protects app store users — just last week, the company added a feature that makes it easy to report obvious app store scams.
The company even cited a blog post (and The Verge article) to illustrate a possible threat to consumers.
Of course, that's not because it costs less, but because "contrary to Apple's strict rules around privacy, the developer intends to provide access to users' email addresses."Other arguments were also raised, which you can read in full in the documentation at the bottom of this article. Overall, Apple said, "Hasty implementation of this ban would upset the careful balance between developers and users provided by the App Store, and would cause irreparable harm to Apple and its customers."Apple also cited an earlier case, Ohio v. AmEx, as evidence that exchanges like the App Store can promote competition, despite diversion restrictions. (American Express, however, is not a software marketplace.)It's worth noting that Apple only filed an appeal; We don't yet know if the court will grant the appeal and stay. When the court ruled in September, Apple said at the time that it had not decided whether to appeal. Epic announced its appeal on the same day that Judge Gonzalez Rogers issued an order and a permanent injunction against Apple. From the start, Epic wasn't happy.
