(Washington) Apple will have to change the business model of its App Store without delay, a US federal judge ruled on Tuesday, calling on the iPhone maker to immediately apply a September court decision opposing it to the video game publisher Epic Games and against which he appealed.
While he appealed the court decision that allows application developers to offer an alternative payment system to his, the technology giant had requested a stay of the decision pending the conclusion of the appeal.
But Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said “Apple’s request is based on a selective reading of the court’s findings and ignores all of the findings that supported the injunction.”
Apple argued that it needed more time, beyond the required date of December 9, to reconfigure its system which prohibits developers from offering any means of payment other than that of the App Store for their applications.
“This is going to be the first time that Apple will allow live links in an app for digital content. It will take months to understand the technical, economic, commercial and other problems, affirmed the lawyer of Apple Mark Perry during a virtual hearing, according to the specialized site The Verge. “It’s extremely complicated,” he pleaded.
The group reacted to the decision, saying, according to a spokesperson, that “no further trade changes should come into effect until all appeals in this matter are resolved.” Apple intends to appeal on this issue of delay.
In the lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple, the judge had, on September 10, imposed on Apple to leave more freedom to publishers, allowing them in particular to bypass the commission levied by the technology giant.
However, it had largely rejected the monopoly accusations against Apple and denounced by Epic, which represented good news for the maker of iPhones accused on all sides of infringements of competition law.
The judge considered that the group at the apple was not in an illegal monopoly situation: “Apple does not have a monopoly on the market for transactions in mobile games”.
Epic Games, the developer of the Fortnite game, which had been calling for such a measure for a year, had appealed against this decision.