Is the App Store about to undergo a big change? Not so fast, says Apple lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff) | usagoldmines.com

• Apple files an appeal to App Store ruling
• This comes just days after it was ordered to change some core App Store rules
• Apple disagreed and now it’s taking action

Apple filed an appeal on Monday to the US District Court Judge’s ruling that forced it to stop charging developers some commission fees.

Just days after Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers accused Apple of lying and not complying with an earlier injunction, the tech giant has filed an appeal that may forestall the application of this new ruling, one that demanded, among other things, the company stop charging a 27% commission on in-app purchases made outside of Apple’s App Store transaction system. The fee applied to apps that were downloaded through the Apple App Store, but which then pointed users to in-app purchases that could be completed through third-party transactions.

Also at issue was Apple’s insistence that its own transaction system be offered alongside these third-party options.

The ruling that Apple is appealing painted a not-too-flattering picture of how Apple answered the original injunction, claiming, “To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise.”

What’s next

Apple’s appeal, which was brought to our attention by The Verge, doesn’t offer any more details on how Apple plans to fight this latest ruling. At the time, Apple was said to “strongly disagree” with the ruling, but Apple representatives also said, “We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.”

The original case was launched in 2020 by Fortnite maker Epic in its quest to open up iOS to third-party app stores, and to open the Apple App Store to outside transaction systems.

With last week’s ruling, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney announced Epic would be returning to the app store, and other app developers claimed that they might be lowering prices because of reduced commission fees.

As of this writing, it’s unclear whether Epic still plans to return and if consumers are about to see cheaper apps and in-app purchases. What is clear, though, is that Apple not done fighting this ruling.

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