{"id":622,"date":"2025-07-02T06:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T06:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.wisemark3t.com\/blogs\/?p=622"},"modified":"2026-07-01T13:12:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:12:38","slug":"judge-pressures-apple-to-approve-fortnite-or-return-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/judge-pressures-apple-to-approve-fortnite-or-return-to-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Pressures Apple To Approve Fortnite Or Return To Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A federal judge is urging Apple to either allow Fortnite back onto the U.S. App Store or return to court to explain why it hasn\u2019t done so.<\/p>\n

In a recent\u00a0filing<\/a><\/strong>,<\/span> U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers acknowledged that the court has received a\u00a0new motion from Epic Games<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, which is pushing for Apple to approve Fortnite for distribution on its platform.<\/p>\n

The judge expressed her frustration by asking Apple to clarify the \u201clegal authority upon which Apple contends that it can ignore this Court\u2019s order.\u201d She also hinted that if Apple doesn\u2019t resolve the issue soon, they might have to come back to court to explain themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cApple is fully capable of resolving this issue without further briefing or a hearing,\u201d she pointed out, reminding the company to identify the official responsible for ensuring they comply with the court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

The implication of requesting the name of the Apple official in the recent filing is that Gonzalez Rogers may be entertaining the idea of contempt charges for failing to adhere to the court\u2019s injunction.<\/p>\n

This comes on the heels of her previous ruling, in which the judge clearly criticized Apple for\u00a0trying to circumvent or route the court directives<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0and charged the tech giant with perjury.<\/p>\n

Following their victory<\/span><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in allowing external payment links to be included in their app,\u00a0Epic Games resubmitted Fortnite for approval on the U.S. App Store<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. However, Apple informed the company that they would not make a decision on the submission until the Ninth Circuit makes a ruling on their request for a partial stay of the new injunction. In simpler terms, Apple stated that they were not obligated to approve the app until the legal proceedings of their appeal were completed.<\/p>\n

On Friday,\u00a0Epic Games took legal<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0action to urge the court to enforce an injunction following Apple\u2019s recent decision.<\/p>\n

This latest move comes after a lengthy legal battle over Apple\u2019s App Store policies, which have traditionally restricted app developers from linking to outside payment methods without paying Apple a commission. Initially, Apple responded to the court\u2019s ruling by allowing U.S. developers to seek exceptions to its App Store guidelines. However, it still charged a 27% commission on these alternative purchases, reduced from the standard 30%. Additionally, Apple mandated that developers display \u201cscare screens\u201d to warn users when they were about to make purchases outside of the App Store.<\/p>\n

In a significant win for developers, Judge Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple was in \u201cwillful violation\u201d of the court\u2019s injunction regarding unfair pricing and commissions, which seemingly opened the door for Fortnite to return to the App Store. However, instead of making a decision right away, Apple delayed for a week, neither approving nor rejecting the game\u2019s publication while its legal team prepared a response.<\/p>\n

What happens next could be important for Apple, as it might lead to similar legal actions or regulations in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

In the initial antitrust lawsuit brought by Epic Games, Apple came out on top when the court ruled that it wasn\u2019t a monopoly. However, Epic did achieve a small victory: the judge, Gonzalez Rogers, decided that iPhone users should be allowed to choose alternative payment methods if developers want to use their own websites for in-app purchases, such as those for virtual items or subscriptions.<\/p>\n

After this ruling,\u00a0Apple changed its App Store rules<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in the U.S. As a result, apps like\u00a0Spotify<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Amazon Kindle<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, and\u00a0Patreon<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0quickly updated their apps to make use of this new option.<\/p>\n

Epic Games chose not to comment on the situation, and Apple has not replied to requests for a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge is urging Apple to either allow Fortnite back onto the U.S. App Store or return to court to explain why it hasn\u2019t done so. In a recent\u00a0filing, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers acknowledged that the court has received a\u00a0new motion from Epic Games, which is pushing for Apple to approve Fortnite … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[161,180],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","tag-apple","tag-epic-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1606,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/1606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisemarket.com.pk\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}