Written by Jaspreet Singh and Fu Yun Che
Apple Inc said on Friday it had approved the Epic Games Store app for iPhones and iPads in Europe, after the Fortnite maker escalated its dispute with the tech giant, accusing it of obstructing its efforts to create a game store on the devices.
Apple said the latest dispute concerns Epic Sweden AB’s store and has nothing to do with the video game maker’s Fortnite app, which has already been greenlit.
App developers and antitrust regulators have criticized Apple’s tight control over the iOS app operating system.
Before Apple’s announcement, Epic Games said the iPhone maker twice rejected the video game publisher’s submissions for the Epic Games Store because the design of some buttons and labels was similar to those used in its own app store.
“We use the same ‘install’ and ‘in-app purchase’ naming conventions used in popular app stores across multiple platforms, and follow standard conventions for buttons in iOS apps,” Epic said in a series of posts on X.
“Apple’s refusal is arbitrary, obstructive and violates the Digital Markets Act, and we have shared our concerns with the European Commission,” the company said in a statement.
The European Commission, which opened an investigation into Apple’s checks and reviews of apps and alternative app stores that will be downloaded last month, declined to comment.
Epic and Apple have been locked in a legal battle since 2020, when the gaming company alleged that Apple’s practice of charging commissions of up to 30% on in-app payments on iOS devices violated US antitrust rules.
Earlier this year, Apple proposed changes to its App Store policies to comply with certain DMA guidelines that went into effect in March.
It allowed for alternative app stores on iPhones and opted out of using an in-app payment system, but it set “underlying technology fees,” which many developers found exploitative.
(This story has been republished to fix garbled text in the headline.)