Apple is asking the US Supreme Court to reverse an earlier decision in another epic courtroom drama

In 2020, if you thought that the legal issue between Apple and Epic Games (the people behind the hugely popular game Fortnite) would be resolved in a year or two, you were very wrong. We are already in the second half of 2023 and the legal battle continues.

Apple is set to sue (via 9to5Mac ), this time in the US Supreme Court. The Cupertino company is asking the nation’s highest court to overturn and reconsider one of the convictions in a landmark case against Epic Games.

If you’ve finished the Netflix series and followed all the episodes of this tech drama carefully, you’ll remember that in September 2021, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple can no longer prevent iOS developers from selling content on their apps. Party payment sites.

Now Apple is serious about making that decision because allowing developers to use third-party platforms to sell app content, even when those apps are distributed through the App Store, makes less money for Apple. How much is it? According to some data, Apple earns more than $30 billion annually from app revenue from the App Store.

How did we arrive at this number?

Considering that total invoices and sales in the App Store ecosystem are expected to generate $1.1 trillion by 2022, it’s easy to see why any legal issue involving the App Store ecosystem is vital to Apple.

In 2020, players of the hugely popular game Fortnite discovered that they could bypass Apple’s payment system and avoid the 30% tax by making in-app purchases like digital currencies (used in the game) cheaper than usual through an external system. Raises the total amount.

Apple immediately shut down Fortnite and removed it from the App Store, while Epic Media filed a lawsuit. The game developers argued that the company was a monopoly and instigated anti-competitive practices. The rest is history.

Don’t expect the saga to end anytime soon. US Supreme Court will easily drag it to 2025!