Apple fights back in new legal documents: Epic CEO demands special treatment

Apple on Friday responded to Epic Games’ lawsuit accusing it of anti competitive practices in controlling the app store, telling the court that Fort night developers had violated Apple’s rules and should not temporarily re launch the store during the legal battle. < / P > < p > Apple said in the document that Epic Games requested a separate arrangement with apple and presented three emails from epic CEO Tim Sweeney to support its claim. This is Apple’s first legal response to Epic Games after the dispute between the two companies spread to the court. A week earlier, Epic Games introduced a new payment option in Fortress night to circumvent Apple’s in app buying rules, from which Apple took a 30% share. Subsequently, apple removed “Fortress night” from its stores for violating its policy. People who already have fortress night on their iPhones can continue to play the app, but can’t update or download it for the first time. < p > < p > Epic Games sued apple in an attempt to force it to change its business practices and launched a “free fortrite” marketing campaign, portraying apple as a “villain.”. < / P > < p > Sweeney said earlier this month that epic was not looking for “special deals” with apple that other IOS app makers could not get. But in Friday’s filing, apple questioned that. < / P > < p > “on June 30, 2020, Tim Sweeney, CEO of epic, wrote an email to my colleagues and me, asking apple to provide a ‘side letter’ to only create a special deal for epic and fundamentally change the way epic supplies on Apple’s IOS platform.” Former Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller wrote in a statement. Schiller has now been upgraded to Apple fellow to manage Apple’s app store. < / P > < p > Apple said Sweeney was asking to allow epic to bypass in app purchases, let fortress night players pay for it directly, and allow it to launch a third-party app store for the iPhone. Schiller said that on the morning of Fort night’s change of payment mechanism, Sweeney sent him an email saying “it will no longer comply with Apple’s payment processing restrictions.”. < / P > < p > “due to restrictions imposed by apple, epic is unable to provide consumers with certain features in our IOS applications,” Sweeney wrote in an email on June 30 entitled “consumer choice and competition.”. The email was sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as Schiller and other Apple executives. “Apple needs to provide a cover letter or modify its contracts and standard documents to remove this restriction, allowing epic to offer competitive app stores and competitive payment processing options to IOS customers,” the letter added. “However, the letter also states,” we hope Apple will provide these options equally to all IOS developers. ” In response to twitter on Friday, Sweeney said Apple’s characterization was misleading, in which he wrote, “I hope apple can provide these options equally to all IOS developers.” < / P > < p > epic has asked for a temporary restraining order to put fortress night back on the app store. A hearing on the order is scheduled for Monday in Northern California. < / P > < p > “after its own voluntary action, epic is now seeking emergency relief. But the “emergency” is entirely caused by epic itself. ” Apple’s lawyer said in the document. < p > < p > Apple said that if epic removed its payment mechanism, it would allow fortress night to return to the app store and would not disable epic’s developer account. If epic loses its Apple Developer account, it will not be able to release the iPhone version of Fortress night, but will also hinder the development of unreal engine, which is used by hundreds of applications of many other companies to help programmers make games.