As of April 6th, 2026, Apple is now coming to the Supreme Court for how it can examine and charge commissions for mobile purchases on third party systems. Although previously the Supreme Court denied Apple’s appeals on the app store cases, we have yet to see what they say of this case. While Epic Games and Google did come to an agreement that led to Fortnite returning to the Google Play store, as a result Sweeney can not speak on Google’s app store fees until 2032- quite some time from now. Apple is also stating that the order placed on its App Store in 2021 that required companies such as Apple to allow developers to have players pay them directly instead of through a third party such as the App Store, is more than what courts are allowed to invoke, and has now requested a stay of the ruling additionally in an attempt to prevent or delay any changes to the App Store as per the previous court ruling. Epic Games spokesperson Natalie Munoz has said that this is merely  “…another delay tactic to prevent the court from establishing significant and permanent bounds on Apple’s ability to charge junk fees on third-party payments”. 

Apple and Epic Games have been adversaries for some time now. As far back as 2015, Tim Sweeney had taken issue with digital storefronts such as Steam or Apple’s App Store taking a 30% shared cut of revenue, stating that after taking into consideration the then-current rates of content distribution, it was more appropriately around 8%. He would also state in 2019 that the 30% revenue share was sensible with consoles, but “there’s enormous investment in hardware, often sold below cost, and marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers”, but that this did not apply with smartphones or personal computers. Sweeney and Epic Games would go on to plan their legal action against Apple, codenamed “Project Liberty”, which began by Epic Games launching a patch for the Apple and Google versions of the game which secretly allowed players to purchase V-Bucks directly through Epic instead of Apple or Google. As this was kept secret, Apple and Google would go on to approve the patch, followed by a hotfix in August 2020 which showed players on the Apple and Google versions of Fortnite the option to directly purchase the V-Bucks through Epic, along with a 20% discount. 

Shortly following this, Apple and Google would remove Fortnite from their app stores, leading Epic to file lawsuits against both of them for alleged antitrust and anticompetitive behaviors. The lawsuit regarding Apple would end largely in said company’s favor with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers favoring Apple in nine out of ten counts, the only one she didn’t being related to anti-steering policies.