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To summarize: Last week, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney declared war on Apple by bypassing its tax on in-app purchases in the Fortnite iOS app. Apple subsequently removed Fortnite from the App Store and then restricted Epic’s access to iOS and Mac developer accounts. Epic has launched several lawsuits against them in response.
As evidence, Apple’s attorneys took the email discussion between Tim Sweeney and Apple to the courts, although the discussion is rather one-sided and gets to the attorneys fairly quickly. On June 30, Sweeney spoke to senior Apple executives including Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi and Matt Fischer in a somewhat informal email requesting changes to App Store policies.
“Due to restrictions imposed by Apple, Epic is unable to provide consumers with certain features of our iOS apps. We want to provide consumers with the following features:
1) Competing payment processing options other than Apple Payments, minus Apple fees, in Fortnite and other Epic Games software distributed through the iOS App Store;
2) A competing Epic Games Store app available through the iOS App Store and through direct install that has the same access to the underlying operating system functionality for installing and updating software as the App IOS Store itself, including the ability to install and update software seamlessly like the iOS App Store experience. “
Ten days later, Apple’s vice president and assistant general counsel (read: senior counsel) Douglas Vetter wrote a long and serious letter to Epic’s legal counsel, Canon Pence. In it, he accuses Epic of demanding unfair treatment and abusing Apple’s resources. He also points out that responding to Epic’s requests would compromise trust between Apple and its customers, as Apple cannot review apps downloaded from third-party app stores such as the Epic Games Store.
Sweeney hit back with another concise email to Apple executives: “It’s a sad state of affairs that Apple’s senior executives are handing over Epic’s sincere request to Apple’s legal team for she responds with such a benevolent and selfish rule – only lawyers could claim that Apple is protecting consumers by denying the choice of payments and stores to owners of iOS devices. “
Almost a month later, he sent another email stating that Epic was going to add alternative payment methods to the Fortnite app with or without Apple’s consent. It was last week and you know the rest. The last two emails are generic emails sent by Apple to “the Epic Games team” informing them of their breaches of Apple policies and of the penalty – removal from the App Store.
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