Epic Games waited five years to get Fortnite back on the iPhone. Australia just made the wait about 24 hours.
An Australian federal judge handed down a 235-page ruling today ordering Apple to allow rival app stores, sideloading from the web, and alternative payment systems on the iPhone for Australian Apple Account holders, according to 9to5Mac. The headline change lands March 1, 2027 — though Apple can ask the court by February 15 for an extension to May 3. The Fortnite part doesn't wait: the judge ordered Apple to readmit Epic's apps upon a written application, and Epic confirmed the game returns to the Australian App Store tomorrow.
Justice Jonathan Beach found Apple held "a substantial degree of power in the iOS app distribution services market and the iOS in-app payment solutions market," and used its developer agreements to restrict competition in violation of section 46 of Australia's Competition and Consumer Act. He singled out the 2020 acts — blocking Epic's direct-pay system, booting Fortnite, terminating Epic's developer account — as "a paradigm example of Apple's enforcement of its restrictive terms."
The scope is the story. This isn't just "let Epic back in." Apple must make the APIs for alternative distribution available on the same terms as App Store developers, can't charge fees for access to alternative channels, and must let developers offer lower prices outside its own payment system. Notably, the court prohibited Apple from requiring developers to report transactions processed through alternative providers or to offer Apple's payment system alongside theirs — conditions Apple currently imposes in Brazil and Japan. The walled garden isn't being opened; it's being dismantled brick by brick, and Australia may now have the strictest blueprint anywhere.
Apple didn't lose everything. The judge refused to extend the injunctions worldwide, let Apple keep security scanning and notarization for outside apps, and didn't force rival marketplaces into the App Store itself. And the company will fight: Apple told Reuters it will "request a stay and appeal the outcome to seek a resolution that respects our intellectual property and protects the safe, secure experience that consumers and developers expect from the App Store." The court also ordered Apple to cover 85% of Epic's trial legal costs — a footnote that reads like a receipt for the whole six-year saga.
The timing is brutal for Apple. It has an iPhone Duo going on sale tomorrow in the middle of a walk-in stock shortage, a media event six days later, and now a countdown to the biggest structural change the iPhone has ever faced in a single market — with Brussels and Seoul watching how Canberra pulls it off.
— via 9to5Mac