Major win for Epic Games: Apple has 90 days to open up app store payments

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

On Friday, the Northern California judge handling the massive Epic Games v. Apple court case turned in a ruling that, in many ways, works out in Apple's favor—but with one massive, App Store-changing exception.

The ruling includes a single-page permanent injunction demanding that Apple open up payment options for any software sellers on the App Store. In other words, Epic Games' effort to add an Epic-specific payment system inside the free-to-play game Fortnite, and thus duck out of paying Apple's 30-percent fee on in-app transactions, can now happen.

Specifically, the injunction is aimed at Apple, not Epic, and tells the device and software manufacturer to no longer prevent developers from either including their own direct buy links within their apps or communicating with customers about those purchasing options via any method customers opt into (i.e. an email newsletter). Apple has 90 days from today, September 10, 2021, until this injunction becomes live and actionable.

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