It’s incredible how quickly Apple changed course on this after being told to have the person responsible front court next week to explain in person why they feel they can defy Gonzalez Rogers’ orders. It should be said, there’s a lot of nuance here, as reinstating Fortnite on the App Store after being banned for their ToS violation is not the same case as the one at hand. However, it seems the internal calculus at Apple has shifted dramatically, and there’s genuine fear of the company and the executives being held accountable in a meaningful way, never mind the court of public opinion. They’ve really pissed off the court through their actions, and it’s not going well for them so far, at all.
lapcat · 3h ago
> it seems the internal calculus at Apple has shifted dramatically, and there’s genuine fear of the company and the executives being held accountable in a meaningful way
Indeed the judge already referred one Apple VP to the prosecutor for investigation of perjury. I'm guessing none of the other VPs want to step foot in that court.
Still, Apple has an appeal pending, so they could still ultimately overturn the judge's decisions.
ocdtrekkie · 2h ago
I think the reading people missed is that Epic won the original case, but YGR was hesitant to "set prices" or outright prohibit "charging for access to the platform", but expected Apple to allow competition. They very poorly misread a softball judgment as "we can still charge everyone 30% as long as people have choices how we do so", and that was an extremely wrong interpretation. Instead of creating an environment where Apple could compete with other providers and still make some reasonable cut, now Apple gets to demand 0%.
Epic threw everything in the case, but they really only needed to win on any one count to win the case.
aspenmayer · 3h ago
Five years. That’s how long it took to resolve this, and Apple still has some appeals left. I hope Apple will open up the US App Store a bit more to be comparable with the EU App Store, but I’m not sure if they would ever do so willingly.
Indeed the judge already referred one Apple VP to the prosecutor for investigation of perjury. I'm guessing none of the other VPs want to step foot in that court.
Still, Apple has an appeal pending, so they could still ultimately overturn the judge's decisions.
Epic threw everything in the case, but they really only needed to win on any one count to win the case.
Previously, related:
Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24146987 - August 2020 (1454 comments)
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150528064508/https://developer...
Gee, people were very convinced this would not, can not, should not happen. I suppose they never read the original decision.