Fortnite Blocked on iPhone? What's Going On?
So, like, if you tried to play Fortnite on your iPhone in Europe or the US on Friday, you were probably outta luck. Epic Games, the guys who make Fortnite, said you couldn't get it through Apple's stuff on iPhones anywhere in the world until Apple unblocks it. Pretty wild, right?
Now, Epic didn't really say why it was blocked. But Apple, you know, the iPhone people, said they told Epic to send the app update again but without the US shop part so it wouldn't mess up Fortnite everywhere else. An Apple spokesperson totally said they didn't do anything to pull the live game from other places you could get it. Interesting, huh?
Epic, which is a US company that's also got some backing from China's Tencent, is actually the biggest game studio in the whole world. Fortnite came out in 2017 and that whole last-person-standing thing it does? It blew up instantly and like, millions of people started playing.
They've been duking it out in court with Apple since 2020. Epic was basically saying Apple's rule where they take up to 30% of the money from stuff you buy in the app was breaking the rules in the US about keeping things fair.
Late on Friday, Epic Games actually asked a judge in California to say Apple was ignoring a court order because they blocked Fortnite from coming back to the App Store in the US. Epic said in a court paper that Apple should have to let Fortnite be available because of an earlier court decision. Epic's paper also said Apple blocking the app was them kinda getting back at Epic for challenging Apple being unfair and for showing the court that Apple wasn't being totally straight up. Apple didn't say anything right away about the court paper outside of normal work hours.
Apple actually kicked Fortnite off their store back in 2020 but let it come back last year. That happened after the big bosses in Europe were putting pressure on big tech companies to follow their new rules. Last year, Apple also said okay to Epic Games having their own app store thing on iPhones and iPads in Europe. Plus, Epic Games even won a court case against Apple earlier this month. What do you think will happen next with these two?
