Apple's long
The legal fights are playing out while Apple faces
At stake is how much control Apple can exert over transactions, and how competitors and banks can expand their ability to offer rival services directly on Apple's devices. Apple would see a material income stream for them if it captures even a portion of the transactions triggered by activity on its platform, and it is another way to envelop its customers within the "Appleverse," according to Stewart Watterson, a strategic advisor for Datos Insights.
"It can also be seen as Apple collecting a gate fee to their app developers who use other payment providers," Watterson said. "Some would see this as Apple fully leveraging the platform that they have built. Others would see this as an unfair monopoly worthy of an antitrust suit. Only time and the courts will tell."
Epic pushback
Epic Games immediately cried foul over the new double-digit fee, with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney issuing a series of
While Apple's battle with Epic has drawn lots of media attention over the past four years, Epic has been in court with Google over its app store payment policies.
The outcomes of the two cases thus far have been different. A U.S. court ruled
"Epic won a lot more of what it was demanding from Google, and that creates a disparity in treatment that Epic will want to resolve," said Aaron McPherson, a principal for AFM Consulting "The appeals process for Google is just beginning, and will probably end up again in the Supreme Court. It may be that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case because it knew about the Google case, and wanted to wait for it to make its way through the appeals courts."
More than games
Apple's battle with Epic is just one of many legal and regulatory battles that
The U.S. Department of Justice is finishing an investigation examining Apple policies that give it control over how people use the tech giant's devices. This includes Apple's policies governing Apple Pay and how iPhones block outside parties such as banks from offering mobile payment apps for iPhones.
In
If Apple's ecosystem were to open to outside payment providers in the U.S. or elsewhere, it would create more competition, but analysts have said Apple would still maintain an advantage, since it would be easier for Apple to offer a superior user experience on its own devices.
The fee battles are similar to the arguments around card interchange, but Apple is the only network provider, according to Aaron Press, research director of worldwide payment strategies for IDC.
"Opening the system only to charge an equivalent fee seems to be analogous to an embedded payment system charging the full fee for accepting a cash transaction," Press said.