{"id":572296,"date":"2026-03-29T15:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T15:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572296\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T15:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T15:18:15","slug":"apples-long-bitter-app-store-antitrust-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572296\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple\u2019s long, bitter App Store antitrust war"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is The Stepback<\/a>, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the legal travails of Big Tech, follow Adi Robertson<\/a>. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers\u2019 inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The year was 1998, and reigning personal computer giant Microsoft was on trial for violating antitrust laws, including by targeting its smaller competitor Apple. Apple occupied only a fraction of the PC market, while Microsoft held north of 80 percent. But its cross-platform QuickTime multimedia player threatened Microsoft\u2019s own offerings, and a court determined<\/a> that Microsoft had tried to crush it \u2014 pushing Apple to abandon a QuickTime version for Windows and implying it would limit the tool\u2019s distribution options if Apple didn\u2019t back off.<\/p>\n

Anyone who\u2019s used an electronic device lately probably knows Apple\u2019s position has shifted. It may have never unseated Microsoft in the personal computer market, but it reigns in the far bigger category of mobile computing. It makes money at virtually every layer of its ubiquitous iPhone: the phone\u2019s hardware, numerous accessories like earbuds and location trackers, first-party software services like Apple Music, and commissions from the developers whose apps populate the App Store. Even the iOS search bar is a moneymaker, thanks to a revenue-sharing deal that sets Google Search as the default.<\/p>\n

All that power, combined with Apple\u2019s tight control over its mobile ecosystem, has raised a lot of hackles. Some hardware and software developers say Apple copied and integrated tools they built (a practice known as Sherlocking), then disadvantaged them<\/a> by locking them out of certain iOS features that its own tool could access \u2014 the former typically isn\u2019t illegal, but the latter can be. Many app makers are critical of the App Store commission, pejoratively known as the \u201cApple Tax.\u201d Developers and users alike are sometimes frustrated with Apple\u2019s lack of support for third-party app stores or sideloading, which rival phone maker Google (albeit with its own anticompetitive restrictions) allows.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade in particular, Apple has joined the growing number of major tech companies facing antitrust action. Chief among its critics is Fortnite maker Epic Games, which has filed legal complaints in several countries, seeking to use its own payment system and launch a third-party app store on iOS. Governments across the world \u2014 including in the US, the European Union, Brazil, Korea, and Japan \u2014 have also gotten in on the action, seeking to crack open the walls of Apple\u2019s digital garden.<\/p>\n

In an industry full of sprawling multipronged tech empires, the basic antitrust argument against Apple is comparatively simple: it\u2019s become the ultimate gatekeeper to billions of people\u2019s primary computing hardware, and it keeps competitors locked out while levying a heavy toll on the developers it lets through. The details are different, but in some ways, it hits the same emotional notes as the old case against Microsoft \u2014 they\u2019re both stories about a company limiting what you can do with your personal device.<\/p>\n

Navigating the legal implications of iOS\u2019 design, though, has proven complicated. Actually changing it is proving even tougher.<\/p>\n

Regulators and courts around the world have ordered changes at Apple, particularly around the App Store \u2014 but those changes have been slow to arrive, in part because for a half-decade or more, Apple has dragged its feet at every turn.<\/p>\n

One of Apple\u2019s highest-profile antitrust battles was the US lawsuit brought by Epic in 2020. Epic asked a judge to make Apple open up iOS to third-party app stores and alternate in-app payment methods. Apple mostly prevailed \u2014 in a 2021 ruling, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers largely accepted its argument that iOS\u2019 walled-garden design provided real safety benefits and wasn\u2019t unfairly anticompetitive.<\/p>\n

But the company has spent years fighting over a comparatively small loss: an order to let developers add links or buttons to outside web-based payment systems. Courts have determined that Apple deliberately failed to comply<\/a> with the order, including by adding a \u201cprohibitive\u201d fee to use it. (This wasn\u2019t the first time it had tacked on this kind of fee, either \u2014 it failed to comply<\/a> with Dutch regulators\u2019 demands to allow third-party payments for dating apps in 2022, racking up tens of millions of dollars in fines.)<\/p>\n

Apple also avoided becoming collateral damage in a different antitrust suit, US v. Google. That case found that Google had monopolized the search market through methods like its search deal with Apple. But a judge declined to ban such deals<\/a> after Apple testified it could significantly damage its business.<\/p>\n

In other countries, Apple has faced harsher demands \u2014 most prominently in the EU, whose Digital Markets Act (DMA) was designed specifically to create competition in the tech world. Under regulatory pressure in 2024, Apple started allowing third-party app stores<\/a> on iOS in the EU. But it did so with a number of restrictions and additional fee structures that discouraged developers from switching over. A year later, it became one of the first companies (alongside Meta) to face fines for violating the DMA<\/a>, with the EU citing \u201coverly strict\u201d requirements and the new fees. Beyond the App Store, Apple has also avoided bringing <\/a>some device features to the EU, including Live Translation for AirPods and iPhone Mirroring; it\u2019s blamed the difficulty of supporting these features on third-party devices per DMA rules.<\/p>\n

Despite Apple\u2019s steady opposition, there have been tangible changes. For over a decade, it was impossible to actually buy ebooks<\/a> through Amazon\u2019s Kindle iOS app, for instance \u2014 but in mid-2025, Amazon used the US court order to start including \u201cGet Book\u201d links. The alternative iOS app store AltStore<\/a> has launched in the EU and Japan, with plans to expand to Brazil and other countries; Epic has launched its Epic Games Store on iOS<\/a> in Europe too. While Epic hasn\u2019t released numbers for iOS store popularity, AltStore said it had \u201chundreds of thousands of users\u201d<\/a> as of last October. And in China, Apple recently reduced developer fees<\/a> in attempts to avoid a potential investigation.<\/p>\n

But for many people, antitrust action hasn\u2019t massively changed the iPhone experience. A different EU third-party store, Setapp, shut down earlier this year<\/a> citing \u201cstill-evolving and complex business terms\u201d; Apple and the EU are sparring<\/a> about who\u2019s at fault. iOS remains effectively one of two global smartphone platforms, and Apple retains tremendous power at every level of it.<\/p>\n

Apple will likely keep tangling with governments. More countries, like Australia<\/a>, have pushed pro-competitive regulatory overhauls. In 2024, the US Department of Justice filed an iOS-related antitrust suit against Apple, and it\u2019s slowly moving toward trial \u2014 though judges can be leery of ordering drastic remedies even if companies are declared monopolies. Meanwhile, Chinese regulators seem poised<\/a> to keep pushing for more changes \u2014 which could become a pressing issue for Apple in the coming year.<\/p>\n

The EU and Apple will also continue hammering out what DMA compliance looks like for iOS. Apple initially planned to roll out a new fee structure<\/a> at the start of 2026, but it\u2019s claimed the EU \u201crefused to let us implement the very changes that they requested,\u201d failing to respond to a compliance plan and using \u201cpolitical delay tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, there\u2019s a more immediate, non-regulatory potential threat to Apple: the rise of generative AI. Companies like OpenAI want to build a new computing pipeline that could bypass the existing system of phones and app stores, including by introducing their own devices<\/a>. Apple has made comparatively few inroads into AI, and it remains dependent on other companies<\/a> as it attempts to overhaul Siri<\/a> with it. In theory, that could put it in the position of an incumbent tech giant about to be undercut by new technology \u2014 roughly the position that \u201990s Microsoft found itself in with the web.<\/p>\n

But Apple has survived other attempts to unseat it, like Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s failed multibillion-dollar metaverse push<\/a>. Losing the AI race hasn\u2019t yet put a dent in phone sales<\/a>. Early attempts at AI-first phone alternatives have been lackluster, and nobody\u2019s figured out what an AI app economy looks like yet. So the battles over Apple\u2019s power likely won\u2019t stop any time soon.<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s competitor Google manages a more open phone ecosystem with Android, but particularly in the US, it\u2019s got a worse antitrust track record \u2014 it lost a legal battle with Epic that now seems likely to end in a settlement, and it\u2019s been declared a monopolist in the search and ad-tech markets as well.Long before App Store competition became a major concern, Apple fought a whole different, arguably weirder, antitrust battle over ebook publishing<\/a> \u2014 after a 2012 DOJ suit accused it of conspiring with major publishing houses to shake Amazon\u2019s dominance in the market. The case ended with a $450 million settlement<\/a>.Apple was one of the major targets<\/a> of a 2021 US congressional push for antitrust reform, with witnesses from companies like Tile and Spotify relating stories about its allegedly anticompetitive conduct. Predictably for Congress, said push failed<\/a>.The Ringer has a classic oral history<\/a> of the original Big Tech antitrust battle, US v. Microsoft.Sean Hollister wrote about the complicated reasons why Apple mostly won its legal battle with Epic, while Google lost<\/a> on The Verge.Antitrust cases are a great chance to get an inside look at how companies function, and Epic v. Apple did not disappoint<\/a>.Cory Doctorow argues Apple\u2019s \u201ccurated computing\u201d model undercuts<\/a> the company\u2019s pro-privacy decisions and other positive moves.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Adi RobertsonClose\"Adi<\/p>\n

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