Apple Is Also Appealing The The Results Of The Epic Game’s Lawsuit

It would appear that Epic Games wasn’t the only one not completely satisfied with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers’s ruling in their lawsuit against Apple as now the device manufacturer has filed their own appeal with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The appeal, originally reported on by Macrumors, is – not surprisingly – in regard to the portion of the ruling that would require apple to change the App Store rules and allow developers to provide links for alternate payment options.

I think most people guessed Apple wouldn’t be too happy with that part of the ruling, despite acting rather chill about it. The interesting thing here is that they filed the appeal after Epic filed theirs and that in it they ask that the court “suspend the requirements” of the ruling until both their and Epic’s appeals have been handled. As has been noted before, that could take years rather than the 90 days initially set forth in the ruling.

Part of the reasoning offered for this appeal by Apple is that making changes to the App Store rules could be disruptive – not just for them, but also for developers and customers. Therefore, the appeal is to protect the platform (as well as Apple’s reputation) by taking the time to work out the “complex and rapidly evolving legal, technological, and economic issues” that these changes could cause. Apple also claims that since Epic really didn’t focus on this particular issue during the trial or offer evidence that the rule caused the company harm, they’ll continue to not be harmed by staying the ruling. (Of course, since Apple refuses to let Epic back on the store for a good long while, particularly Fortnite, they’re not exactly being hurt by how the store currently functions anyway.)

Presently, Apple is required to comply with the ruling by December 9. We’ll just have to wait and see how the appeal works out to know if that’s still going to happen.