The Fortnite saga shows Apple at its pettiest–and most vulnerable

Just when you think Apple’s long-running dispute with Epic Games is finally over, someone manages to find a way to spin it out even longer. There’s always time for one more lawsuit, one more appeal, one more acrimonious tweet. And if two multibillion-dollar corporations can’t find a way to resolve their differences amicably, what hope have the rest of us?

At the end of April, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued what felt at the time like a conclusively unambiguous ruling demanding that Apple comply instantly with previous measures and adding more on top. The company, it was made plain, will not merely have to allow other payment systems within iOS apps, but refrain from sabotaging them with satirically high fees and off-putting verbiage.

That should have been that, but Cupertino is still feeling punchy. Epic thought, not unreasonably, that its Fortnite game would now be allowed back on the App Store, having originally been kicked off for the practices which Apple has just been told it must allow. But life is full of surprises. “Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission,” Epic tweeted on May 16, “so we cannot release to the U.S. App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union.”

But here’s the kicker: Epic promptly decided to retaliate by taking the game dark on iOS worldwide, including versions delivered through Epic’s own store. That might sound like cutting off your nose to spite your face, but this will hurt Apple too. And users. In fact barely anyone will have a nose by the time this is over.

On the face of it, it makes little sense to prevent Fortnite from returning to iOS. It’s an immensely popular game with hundreds of millions of players across a wide range of platforms, and being able to play it on iPhone makes the iPhone a more appealing device. Even if Apple made zero revenue from sales and in-app purchases, it would still be worth having the title on iOS purely for the sake of user happiness. Conversely, refusing to allow it generates masses of bad PR and resentment, which is poison to a company that depends so much on its image.

In this particular case, that zero-revenue idea isn’t entirely inconceivable, because Epic is a big enough company with a reputable enough storefront that it could (assuming the judge’s ruling isn’t watered down on appeal) cut Apple entirely out of the transactional loop. But most games developers don’t have that luxury. They will, at the very least, offer their own and Apple’s payment systems side by side, and I’m convinced that most users would vastly, vastly prefer to buy through the official App Store. Ask yourself this: How easy is it to find jailbreaking instructions online? And yet, how many (or how few) people do you know who actually jailbreak their iPhones?

While following this saga, it’s occurred to me that I don’t actually want to buy iOS apps from alternative stores. I just want that to be an option because competition is healthy and would encourage Apple to lower fees and generally treat developers better. Having a bunch of different places to go whenever I want to buy something new or update what I’ve got is a dismaying prospect; I don’t want to enter my payment details in a dozen different websites and constantly worry about whether they can be trusted. But other people might. The App Store itself is one of Apple’s all-time great products, delivering such a reassuring, frictionless one-stop-shop experience that software became for the first time an impulse buy. It won’t lose its magic just because there’s another option.

I get why Apple tried to maintain its control of iOS app installs and purchases; it has shareholders to think about and can’t just wave away swathes of revenue without pushback. But the vigor and uncompromising fierceness with which the company has defended that revenue stream has been alarming, to say the least, and may prove costly too. At multiple points in the saga Apple could have yielded a little and reached a compromise acceptable to all parties: allowed sideloading under strict limits; allowed third-party payment systems with a moderate instead of laughably high revenue cut. Instead it pushed and fought and, as the judge put it, “willfully chose not to comply.” And now it appears to be pursuing petty revenge which will hurt itself just as much as the opposition, for no clear rational reason.

Saying that someone never knows when they’re beaten sounds like a compliment (“People should know when they’re conquered.” “Would you, Quintus? Would I?”) but often it just means suffering more than you need to for a lost cause. Apple lost this war, and choice was the winner. Now it needs to accept the result and get on with making that outcome work for its users… who are, after all, supposed to be the priority.

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Trending: Top stories

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The first thing Jason Cross installs on every new Mac is this little free emoji utility.

If iPadOS 19 is going to be more like the Mac, it needs these 9 features stat.

Podcast of the week

When WWDC rolls around in June, it’ll be two years since Apple announced visionOS and the Apple Vision Pro. In episode 934 of the Macworld Podcast, we examine the state of Apple’s spatial computing platform and what Apple could have in store at WWDC and beyond.

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

• iPad Air (M3) review: Only slightly better, but still the best.
• Verbatim TurboMetal SSD review: Stylish portable drive.
• PowerPhotos 3 review: Time-saving Apple Photos tool for power users on the Mac.
• EcoFlow Power Hat review: A sun hat with solar panels.

The rumor mill

Apple is reportedly working on the hybrid Mac we all want–and it could arrive in 2028.

Folding and curved iPhones are both predicted in 2027 ‘product blitz.’

In fact the iPhone 18’s edgeless curved display seems like a certainty now.

iOS 19 will reportedly use AI to extend the iPhone’s battery life.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

A bizarre iPhone bug is causing some audio messages to fail. Here’s why.

iOS 18.5 may be a minor update, but it has one major iPhone upgrade.

Apple’s months-old C1 modem has a serious security flaw.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.