Fortnite unavailable on iPhones globally after Apple rejects App Store release

Epic Games says Fortnite is present unavailable connected iPhones and iPads globally due to the fact that Apple blocked a bid to merchandise the fashionable video crippled successful the App Store successful the US and Europe.

“Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission truthful we cannot merchandise to the US App Store oregon to the Epic Games Store for iOS successful the European Union,” the X relationship for Fortnite posted aboriginal Friday – claiming that Apple’s determination would present forestall the game’s iOS availability astir the world.

“Sadly, Fortnite connected iOS volition beryllium offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it,” Fortnite said.

In a connection sent to the Associated Press, Apple said it had specifically asked Epic Sweden to resubmit the app update “without including the US storefront of the App Store truthful arsenic not to interaction Fortnite successful different geographies”. But, the institution added, it “did not instrumentality immoderate enactment to region the unrecorded mentation of Fortnite from alternate organisation marketplaces”.

Fortnite’s exile from the iPhone app store is the latest twist successful a years-long feud betwixt Apple and Epic. Back successful 2020, the video crippled shaper filed an antitrust suit against Apple successful the US, alleging the exertion trendsetter was illegally utilizing its powerfulness to gouge crippled makers.

After a month-long proceedings successful 2021, territory justice Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled against astir of Epic’s claims, but ordered Apple to loosen its antecedently exclusive power implicit the payments made for in-app commerce and let links to alternate options successful the US for the archetypal clip – threatening to undercut sizeable commissions that Apple had been collecting from in-app transactions for much than a decade.

After exhausting an entreaty that went each the mode to the US ultimate court, Apple past twelvemonth introduced a caller strategy that opened the doorway for links to alternate outgo options portion inactive imposing a 27% committee connected in-app transactions executed extracurricular its ain system.

Epic fired backmost by alleging Apple was thumbing its chemoreceptor astatine the ineligible system, reviving different circular of tribunal hearings that lasted astir a twelvemonth earlier Gonzalez Rogers delivered a stinging rebuke past period – which held Apple successful civilian contempt and banned the institution from collecting immoderate committee connected alternate outgo systems.

That ruling cleared the mode for Epic to yet instrumentality to the iPhone app store successful the US, a reinstatement the video crippled shaper was anticipating earlier Apple’s latest move.

Fortnite’s availability successful the EU, meanwhile, was acceptable to spell successful an alternate store for iPhone users – present called the Epic Games Store. Apple cleared the mode for it past twelvemonth nether caller regulatory pressures.