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In retaliation for its antitrust case, Apple is prepared to keep Epic titles off iOS for a full year.
Apple could penalize Epic Games and keep Fortnite off iOS and Mac devices for a full year, court documents reveal. On August 28, 2020, Apple revoked Epic’s developer license and does not plan to reinstate it for a full year. That means Fortnite won’t be allowed on iOS devices until 2021, which excludes Apple from the lucrative millions and denies Epic access to 116 million registered users on the iOS platform.
The information was obtained from Epic’s preliminary injunction filed on September 4, which was aimed at convincing the courts to reverse Apple’s decision and forcibly reinstate Epic’s developer account. It is noted in Annex H in court documents, it says:
Apple is exercising its right, in its sole discretion, to terminate its status as a Registered Apple Developer pursuant to the Apple Developer Agreement and terminate the Developer Agreement and the ADP Agreement in accordance with their terms.
We would like to remind you of your obligations with respect to all software and other confidential information that you obtained from Apple as an Apple developer and under the ADP Agreement.
You must immediately stop using and destroying such materials and comply with all other termination obligations set forth in Section 11.3 of the ADP Agreement and Section 10 of the Apple Developer Agreement. Please note that, among others mentioned in the agreements, your obligations in Section 7.1 of Annex 2 of the ADP Agreement survive termination.
Finally, please note that we will deny your new application to the Apple Developer Program for at least one year considering the nature of your actions.
Epic used this one-year ban as artillery against Apple, claiming it will cause material damage to the business.
In fact, the iOS ban is already having a significant impact on Epic’s earnings. Daily active Fortnite users on iOS are down 60%, representing millions of microtransaction earnings potentially lost with each passing week.
Epic has previously stated that IOS users spend ‘significantly more’ on in-game Fortnite microtransactions than Android users.
Unless the courts intervene, Fortnite will remain off iOS for at least a year.
