Home
News
You are here

Apple must turn over 1.3 million documents on January App Store policy changes by today

By Tsveta Ermenkova

Published: Sep 30, 2024, 4:00 AM

0comments

Apple Apps

In 2020, a legal battle kicked off between Apple and Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite. The trouble started when Epic Games tried to sidestep App Store rules by offering direct payment links, which led Apple to pull Fortnite from the App Store. Since then, the two companies have been caught up in an ongoing legal feud.

Judge unimpressed by Apple’s plea for more time in the Epic case

At the end of last week, Apple tried – and failed – to get Judge Thomas S. Hixson, who oversees the document discovery process, to extend the deadline for submitting important documents in its legal clash with Epic Games.

In a request made on September 26, Apple claimed that the number of records to sift through was way more than it originally thought, so the company needed extra time. However, the judge made it clear that September 30 “is indeed the deadline,” turning down Apple’s plea to postpone producing 1.3 million documents.

This is just another chapter in the ongoing saga between Apple and Epic Games, which has been challenging Apple’s App Store rules. While Apple had a mostly favorable outcome in US district court, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over the Epic lawsuit, did order it to ease some App Store policies, giving developers more leeway to collect payments and subscriptions without having to go through Apple’s in-app payment system. This prompted Apple to roll out changes in January. However, since Apple is still taking a cut from those payments, Epic is now accusing the company of “bad-faith” compliance.

Back in August, the judge told Apple to hand over all documents related to its new App Store rules. But last week, Apple said Epic’s search terms turned up more than twice the expected number of records, so the company needed an extra two weeks to comb through what ended up being over 1.3 million files. However, Judge Thomas S. Hixson not only shot down Apple’s request for an extension but also speculated that the delay was an attempt to dodge exposing any negative information.

The way Apple announced out of the blue four days before the substantial completion deadline that it would not make that deadline because of a document count that it had surely been aware of for weeks hardly creates the impression that Apple is behaving responsibly.

– Judge Thomas S. Hixson, September 2024

Hixson pointed out that Apple had more than enough time to gather and review the documents. He even argued that with its “nearly infinite resources,” the company could probably get through all those documents in a single weekend.

Now we’ll see if the tech giant really did manage to review and organize all those documents over the weekend. But one thing I’m pretty sure of is that this legal showdown between the two companies is far from over and will drag on for quite a while.

View Full Bio

Tsveta, a passionate technology enthusiast and accomplished playwright, combines her love for mobile technologies and writing to explore and reveal the transformative power of tech. From being an early follower of PhoneArena to relying exclusively on her smartphone for photography, she embraces the immense capabilities of compact devices in our daily lives. With a Journalism degree and an explorative spirit, Tsveta not only provides expert insights into the world of gadgets and smartphones but also shares a unique perspective shaped by her diverse interests in travel, culture, and visual storytelling.