Apple faces heat from EU antitrust cops for blocking ‘Fortnite’ maker’s app store plans in Europe
NY Post
Apple is facing heat from European Union antitrust cops after it blocked “Fortnite” maker Epic Games from launching its own app store for iPhone customers — a brazen move that came even as it faced a deadline to comply with a sweeping European tech competition law.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based firm on Wednesday escalated its nasty public feud with Epic Games and its CEO Tim Sweeney — who previously called Apple’s proposed compliance changes to its App Store “hot garbage” — by terminating the developer account for Epic Games’ Swedish affiliate.
The account, which Apple had approved just weeks earlier, would have allowed Epic to offer “Fortnite” and its “Epic Games Store” directly to iPhone users.
Apple’s surprise move came just a day before a Thursday deadline to comply with the Digital Markets Act — a new law that imposes new restrictions on Apple and five other “gatekeeper” companies and penalizes them for violations. Epic Games called Apple’s surprise move a “serious violation” of the DMA.
Top EU officials appeared to agree.
In a snarky signal of a possible clampdown on Apple, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager wrote in an X post on Thursday that gamers would “be able to play @FortniteGame once it will be back on iOS” alongside a winking-face emoji — just hours after Apple announced it had terminated Epic’s account in Europe.
