Fortnite is back on Apple's Australian App Store from today, after the Federal Court ordered the iPhone maker to open its devices to competing app stores and alternative payment systems. Justice Jonathan Beach handed down the ruling on Thursday, finding that Apple had breached Australian competition law, according to ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The order gives Apple until March 2027 to implement the changes. The decision follows a judgment in August last year in which both Apple and Google were found to have misused their market power in the way they operated their app stores.
Why it matters
Roughly 15 million Apple users in Australia are expected to gain the ability to install apps from the open web and from rival marketplaces, ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. Consumer advocates say they hope the shift will drive more competition and bring down prices.
The ruling also ends a six-year absence for Fortnite, one of the world's most played games, which had been unavailable on Apple's Australian storefront since the dispute began.
What the court found
Justice Beach concluded that Apple had contravened the Competition and Consumer Act through what he described as an intricate web of contractual terms and technical restrictions. He ordered Apple to cover 85 per cent of Epic Games' legal costs from the months-long trial.
The case is the Australian strand of a long-running antitrust fight between Apple and Epic Games, the studio behind Fortnite, which has also played out in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. Epic and lawyers in a parallel class action had argued that Apple and Google operated unlawful monopolies by effectively blocking rival app stores from their devices and requiring apps to route payments through their own systems, where commissions of 15 to 30 per cent are collected.
Apple defended the case on security and intellectual property grounds. In a statement to Reuters, a company spokesperson said the company disagreed with many of the court's conclusions and would seek to challenge them.
"We will request a stay and appeal the outcome to seek a resolution that respects our intellectual property and protects the safe, secure experience that consumers and developers expect from the App Store," the spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
The wider fight
The Australian judgment adds to a growing set of regulatory and legal pressures on Apple's App Store model across several jurisdictions. Under the orders, the company must permit both alternative marketplaces and alternative payment methods on its devices in Australia.
Apple now has until March 2027 to comply, though its planned appeal and request for a stay could affect the timeline.