Judge denies Apple request to delay app store changes

A federal judge ordered Apple to allow app developers to include links to payment methods outside its app store next month, denying the tech giant’s request for a delay after the judge’s initial ruling in the company’s lawsuit with Epic Games.

Apple’s argument in its appeal was “fundamentally flawed” and failed to address the court’s findings, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in a decision Tuesday.

“In short, Apple’s motion is based on a selective reading of this Court’s findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction, namely incipient antitrust conduct including supercompetitive commission rates resulting in extraordinarily high operating margins and which have not been correlated to the value of its intellectual property. This incipient antitrust conduct is the result, in part, of the antisteering policies which Apple has enforced to harm competition,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote.

Apple largely won the case brought by the developer behind the popular Fortnite game, with the judge ruling in September that Apple is not an illegal monopoly, as alleged by the developer.

The case centered on Apple kicking Fortnite out of its app store after the game company put in place its own in-app payment system — which is against Apple’s rules — in an effort to circumvent the up to 30 percent commission fees the tech giant collects from apps.

But with the ruling, Gonzalez Rogers issued an injunction restraining Apple from prohibiting developers from including external links directing customers to options to make purchases outside of the in-app payment system.

The injunction was ordered to be implemented within 90 days of the Sept. 10 ruling. With the motion to stay denied, Apple may have to update its app store rules by early December. 

The company, however, plans to seek a reversal of the decision with a federal appeals court. 

“Apple believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals in this case are resolved,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement.

Apple has defended its app store rules, arguing that it helps provide security for users. 

During The New York Times’s DealBook summit Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook argued consumers do have choice for apps outside of the Apple App Store through buying alternative products. 

“If you want to sideload, you can buy an Android phone. So that choice exists. When you go into the carrier shop, if that’s important to you, then you should buy an Android phone,” Cook said. “From our point of view it would be like if I were an automobile manufacturer, telling me not to put airbags and seatbelts on a car. You would never think about doing this and in today’s time, it’s just too risky to do that. It wouldn’t be an iPhone, if it didn’t maximize security and privacy.”