Judge permanently restrains Apple from blocking Epic’s developer account.

[Goukosan 2,451]

the walled Garden is coming down brick by brick 

[Remij 5,028]

Link?

[Goukosan 2,451]

4 minutes ago, Remij said:

Link?

 "Epic did successfully win an order that will require Apple to continue to allow Epic to operate its Unreal Engine developer account." 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.macrumors.com/2020/10/09/apple-denied-fortnite-preliminary-injunction/amp/

 

[Hot Sauce 2,836]

The Fortnite injunction getting denied is the real story.

[Goukosan 2,451]

6 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

The Fortnite injunction getting denied is the real story.

That's preliminary.   Goes to Trial in May. 

 

Meanwhile this is permanent. 

[jehurey 3,318]

 

This is all going to come down to whether a court believes that Apple iOS userbase is so large that its a common and vital part of the mobile phone industry market, and their decisions unfairly stifle innovation, which opens it up to antitrust litigation.

 

The ironic part is that Steve Jobs felt utterly betrayed by Google supposedly "stealing" the core ideas behind iOS in order to make the Android operation system, that now 13 years later, Apple's primary argument is going to be "we can't considered a monopoly because, see, Android exists as an option!!!"

 

But eventually there's going to be a major government regulator that will say "you're going to have to lessen your restrictions to the same level as Android."

 

And that's what Epic wants.

[Hot Sauce 2,836]

2 hours ago, Goukosan said:

Meanwhile this is permanent. 

 

No, it's a preliminary injunction until the case's disposition in May and an extension of the restraining order from August. There's no reason to expect it won't be made actually permanent in May, though, because Apple retaliating against Epic's developer account has no legal leg to stand on. It's Apple having a hissy.

 

The focus of Epic v. Apple is the claim of Apple violating antitrust laws by having a monopoly on iOS payment processing and the preliminary injunction with regards to that was dismissed because Epic 'has not established likelihood of success for its claims.' The judge even discredited Epic's economic expert a bit by pointing out that he ignored existing California case law with regards to single brand markets. My favourite part though was when the judge cited Epic's own post-iOS-ban advertising of Fortnite being multiplatform and encouraging users to switch away from iOS as evidence against Epic's arguments of users being locked into iOS. The judge's order was basically a bloodbath with Epic on the losing side, but we'll see how that translates to the ruling in May.