Update, July 5, 5:25PM ET: The same day it posting a tweet thread about Apple’s app submission processes, Epic now says its game store has been accepted by Apple. The company offered no further commentary beyond a single tweet noting that “Apple has informed us that our previously rejected Epic Games Store notarization submission has now been accepted.”
Thirty minutes later, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said “Apple is now telling reporters that this approval is temporary and are demanding we change the buttons in the next version – which would make our store less standard and harder to use. We’ll fight this.”
Guess this saga’s got more legs to run.
The original story chronicling Epic’s moody tweets follows unedited.
Epic says that Apple has once again rejected its submission for a third-party app store, according to a series of posts on X. The company says that Apple rejected the latest submission over the design and position of the “install” button on the app store, claiming that it too closely resembles Apple’s own “get” button. Apple also allegedly said that Epic’s “in-app purchases” label is too similar to its own label, used for the same reason.
The maker of Fortnite suggests that this is just another salvo in the long-running dispute between the two companies. Epic says that it’s using the same “install” and “in-app purchases” naming conventions found “across popular app stores on multiple platforms.” As for the design language, the company states that it’s “following standard conventions for buttons in iOS apps” and that they’re “just trying to build a store that mobile users can easily understand.”
1/3 Apple has rejected our Epic Games Store notarization submission twice now, claiming the design and position of Epic’s “Install” button is too similar to Apple’s “Get” button and that our “In-app purchases” label is too similar to the App Store’s “In-App Purchases” label.
— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) July 5, 2024
Epic has called the rejection “arbitrary, obstructive and in violation of the DMA.” To that end, it has shared concerns with the European Commission in charge of tracking potential Digital Markets Act (DMA) violations. The company still says it’s ready to launch both the Epic Games Store and Fortnite on iOS in the EU in “the next couple of months” so long as Apple doesn’t put up “further roadblocks.”
This is just the latest news from a rivalry that goes back years. The two companies have been sparring ever since Epic started using its own in-app payment option in the iOS version of Fortnite, keeping Apple away from its 30 percent cut.
This led to a lengthy legal battle in the US about Apple’s walled-garden approach to its app store. Epic sued Apple and Apple banned Epic. A judge issued a permanent injunction as a way to allow developers to avoid Apple’s 30 percent cut of sales. This didn’t satisfy anyone. Apple wasn’t happy, for obvious reasons, and Epic contested the language of the injunction, which didn’t call out Apple for having a monopoly. Both companies appealed, eventually making its way to the Supreme Court. The court decided not to hear the case. The justices must have had other things to do.
As the two companies continued bickering in the US, the EU passed the aforementioned DMA. This forced Apple’s hand into allowing third-party storefronts on iOS devices in Europe. Since then, Epic has been trying to get its storefront going but has been met by resistance from Apple.
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