Technology

What's Up With Apple: Epic Opposes Delay, Apple Alters App Rules, and More

Paul Ausick

Published: October 25, 2021 7:55 am

When federal District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers handed down her decision in Epic Games lawsuit against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), she gave Apple 90 days to comply with an injunction forcing the company to allow people to make purchases outside the App Store. Those 90 days end on December 9.

Earlier this month, Apple filed an appeal of this part of Judge Rogers’s decision, seeking a delay in implementing the change. In a court filing on Friday, Epic argued that Apple had not met the requirement that the company demonstrate how it would be harmed by complying, even temporarily, with the order. According to a Reuters report: “Epic said that Apple’s positive comments about the ruling shortly after it landed, and its delay in asking for a pause, showed that it would not be harmed by enacting the orders.”

Epic also echoed Judge Rogers’s own comment on Apple’s reluctance to make any changes to its policies unless forced to: “History shows … that in the absence of an injunction, Apple will not make any changes.” A hearing on Apple’s request for a delay is set for November 9.

Apple announced on Friday that it made changes to its app developer guidelines to reflect the changes the company agreed to make back in August. Apple agreed then to let developers tell customers about purchase options for their iOS products outside the App Store.

Under the old guidelines, developers were forbidden from using information they gathered from within the app to notify people of other ways of making in-app purchases. The new guideline deleted that restriction and added language that allows developers to communicate with their users by email.

Briefly noted:

When Snap reported earnings last week, CEO Evan Spiegel commented that Apple’s Tracking Transparency feature had “upended” the mobile advertising business. Facebook reports quarterly results after markets close Monday, and The Wall Street Journal reports that analysts expect Apple’s privacy rules to slow the growth of Facebook’s ad revenues. There’s plenty of speculation, too, that Facebook will announce a new corporate name Monday. Perhaps, Metaverse Inc.?

Business Insider reported Sunday that the attorneys general of 12 states have updated an existing lawsuit against Google to include a charge that Google and Facebook “have been working together to improve Facebook’s ability to recognize users … [t]hereby circumventing one Big Tech company’s efforts to compete by offering users better privacy.”

So, on the one hand, Apple is a tech giant using its market power to crush the competition and on the other hand, it is the victim of another “Big Tech” firm’s attempt to crush the competition.

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