Few confrontations in the technology sector have been as significant as the one Apple and Epic Games have been waging for years, a conflict that was previously present in a more latent way, but which escalated by several orders of magnitude when Apple decided in August 2020 to exclude Fortnite from the iOS and iPadOS App Store, leading to a lawsuit that led to starting eleven months later and due to the various phases it has gone through, we still can’t wrap it up. In this link you can see all the information that we have published in this regard, and I assure you that it is not enough.

Epic Games was therefore one of the tech companies that openly celebrated Apple’s inclusion on the European Union’s gatekeeper list and He is also among those who openly criticized the restrictions imposed by those from Cupertino on their DMA arrangement. Something that did not prevent the creators of Fortnite from confirming that there will be an Epic Games store on iOS, which will arrive sometime in 2024. A store in which we can take for granted both the presence of Fortnite and alternative means of payment to Apple Pay.

For this, Epic Games, of course be able to use your iOS developer account, which Apple approved just a few weeks ago. So everything indicated that the situation (conflictingly) is gradually cooling down and that the creators of Fortnite will finally reach iOS again. But it only looked that way, because Apple reserved a step that completely destroys the developer’s plans.

It was the company itself that stated this in an official statement stating this Apple suspended Epic Games developer account, preventing them from moving forward with their plans to create their own store for the iPhone operating system. Obviously, the news didn’t sit well with Epic, who stated:This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows that Apple has no intention of allowing real competition on iOS devices..»

As Epic Games said, Apple is bringing it up There are several reasons why you have decided to cancel your developer accountamong them the aforementioned criticism of iOS’s adaptation to DMA, as well as the idea that Epic is a threat to the iPhone ecosystem, to which they respond that in fact Epic is already in it (both by some apps and the Unreal Engine) without causing any problems so far .

In the statement we can see, among other things, Email sent by Phil Schiller (one of the most visible faces of Apple) to Tim Sweeney (founder and CEO of Epic Games), in which he reminds him that in the past «Epic made deals with Apple and then broke them”, thus calling into question the reliability of current commitments. In response to it, we see a message from Sweeney in which he agrees to abide by the terms set by Apple.

Does Apple have reasons not to trust Epic Games? Given the poor relations between the two companies and taking into account the precedents, it is understandable that there are complaints of this type, but it is also true that the DMA completely redefined the rules of the game, and therefore the action is as restrictive as the one adopted by Apple, even more so. considering that it is justified solely by speculation about what might happen in the future, it does not aim to find a suitable place in the European Union.