San Francisco Apple managed at the last minute to postpone a court ruling to relax the app store rules. A US appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Apple’s objections raise serious questions and that the iPhone company could suffer significant damage if it failed. That’s why it stopped implementing the changes that were due to come into effect on Thursday.
According to the decision of a California district judge, app developers in the USA should be given the right to use links or buttons to refer to payment options outside of Apple’s platform for their applications. The verdict came at the beginning of September in the process between Apple and the company Epic Games, from which the online game “Fortnite” originates. Apple argued that the change could harm consumers and the integrity of the app store platform.
In the process, Epic wanted to obtain the right to operate its own app store on the iPhone – and failed. But the district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers decided at the same time that Apple can no longer prohibit developers from advising users of ways to buy the items cheaper outside of the app store.
Apple basically allows the purchase of digital goods – such as virtual items in game apps – via its in-house payment platform. A fee of 15 or 30 percent is due to the group. Apple argues, among other things, that the process would protect users from attempted fraud and misuse of their data. Some app developers criticize that the levy is unjustifiably high.
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Apple warned that some developers, from the company’s point of view, interpreted the judge’s decision too generously and wanted to pack entire alternative payment processes behind the links. As the company argues, this could allow malicious developers to misuse user data, while Apple could not prevent this.
More: The verdict against Apple’s App Store is important to Epic’s future – and the internet