Apple has lost its long fight with Epic Games in Australia, and the fallout is specific: iPhone owners with Australian Apple Accounts must be able to install apps from third-party app stores and websites by March 1, 2027.
The order came Thursday from Justice Jonathan Beach of the Federal Court of Australia, in a 235-page decision that follows a ruling last year finding Apple had broken the country's competition law. Apple can ask by February 15 for an extension to May 3, 2027, but that would need the court's approval.
Justice Beach found Apple held what he called a substantial degree of power in both the iOS app distribution market and the iOS in-app payment market, and used its developer agreements and App Store rules to shut out rivals. He pointed specifically to Apple's 2020 standoff with Epic, including the refusal to allow Epic's own payment system, Fortnite's removal from the App Store, and the termination of Epic's developer account. He described the last two as, in his words, a paradigm example of Apple enforcing restrictive terms in violation of Australian competition law.
The remedies go well beyond just letting other storefronts exist. Apple is also barred from stopping developers from linking customers to outside payment options, and from charging a commission on purchases made outside its own payment system. Separately, the court threw out a practice Apple uses in markets like Brazil and Japan: requiring developers to report every transaction handled through an alternative payment provider, or to offer Apple's own payment option side by side with whatever alternative they choose.
Apple did not lose on everything. Beach rejected Epic's push to make the ruling apply worldwide, and let Apple keep its security scanning and notarization checks for apps distributed outside the App Store. Apple also doesn't have to carry rival marketplaces inside its own App Store, a line the judge had already drawn in last year's ruling.
Apple must also cover 85% of Epic's legal costs from the original trial. A separate decision on costs tied to the later remedies hearings is still pending.
Epic wasted no time declaring victory, saying Fortnite is coming back to the Australian App Store on Friday and calling the ruling good news for developers and iOS users across the country. Apple's response was blunter: it plans to appeal, arguing in a statement that it will seek an outcome that protects its intellectual property and keeps what it calls the safe, secure experience App Store users expect.
The case mirrors Apple's unfinished antitrust battle with Epic in the United States, and adds Australia to a growing list of markets, alongside the European Union and Japan, where regulators and courts have forced Apple to loosen its grip on how iPhone users get apps and pay for them. Whether Apple's appeal delays any of this past March 2027 is now the question for Australian developers and users to watch.
TBFiled by The Tech Business Desk
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