For those who came in late, Apple is getting a kicking from the EU regulators over the management of its App store, and rather than sit back and be friendly to its rivals, it appears to want to hand over more monopoly money.
This morning, Epic Games posted on its blog that Apple had backtracked on allowing the development of the Epic Games Store for iOS
The blog said: “We recently announced that Apple gave the green light to our Epic Games Sweden AB developer account. Thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we planned to use that account to bring the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe. To our shock, Apple has scrapped that account, and now we can't develop the Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious breach of the DMA and shows Apple has no interest in allowing true competition on iOS devices.”
The DMA forces Apple to allow third-party app stores like Epic Games. Article 6(4) of the DMA says: "The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper."
Epic said that by scrapping Epic's developer account, Jobs’ Mob is wiping out one of the biggest potential rivals to the Apple App Store.
“They are sabotaging our ability to be a decent rival and showing other developers what happens when you try to take on Apple or slam their unfair practices. If Apple keeps its power to boot a third-party marketplace off iOS at its whim, no sensible developer would be up for using a third-party app store because they could be cut off from their audience at any time,” Epic moaned.
Epic said Apple scrapped Epic's developer account only a few weeks after approving it as revenge because the Fortnite maker publicly slammed its proposed DMA compliance plan.