BITING APPLE BACK
EU Epic response
Apple is facing heat from European Union antitrust cops after it blocked “Fortnite” maker Epic Games from launching its own app store for iPhone customers — a brazen move that came even as it faced a deadline to comply with a sweeping European tech competition law.
The Cupertino, Calif.based firm on Wednesday escalated its nasty public feud with Epic Games and its CEO Tim Sweeney — who previously called Apple’s proposed compliance changes to its App Store “hot garbage” — by terminating the developer account for Epic’s Swedish affiliate.
The account, which Apple had approved just weeks earlier, would have allowed Epic to offer “Fortnite” and its Epic Games Store directly to iPhone users.
Apple’s surprise move came just a day before a Thursday deadline to comply with the Digital Markets Act — a new law that imposes new restrictions on Apple and five other “gatekeeper” companies and penalizes them for violations. Epic Games called Apple’s surprise move a “serious violation” of the DMA.
Top EU officials appeared to agree. In a snarky signal of a possible clampdown on Apple, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager wrote in an X post on Thursday that gamers would “be able to play @FortniteGame once it will be back on iOS” alongside a winking-face emoji — just hours after Apple announced it had terminated Epic’s account in Europe.
Seeking answers
Meanwhile, the European Commission has “requested further explanations on this from Apple under the DMA,” a spokesperson confirmed to The Post.
Epic said Apple had cited Sweeney’s public criticism of the iPhone maker’s business practices as one of the reasons the developer account was terminated.
The North Carolina-based company published a letter it had received from Apple’s App Store chief Phil Schiller.
“Your colorful criticism of our DMA compliance plan, coupled with Epic’s past practice of intentionally violating contractual provisions with which it disagrees, strongly suggest that Epic Sweden does not intend to follow the rules,” Schiller said in the letter.
Apple’s brash stance runs the risk of antagonizing the very regulators who will decide whether it is in compliance with the law, according to Sumit Sharma, a senior researcher on tech competition for Consumer Reports.