Store wars

Epic vs Apple feels like the beginning, not the end, of a shake-up in digital distribution

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According to Steve Jobs’ authorised biography – the same adapted for the screen by Aaron Sorkin – the co-founder of Apple came up with the company’s name on the way home from an orchard, a pilgrimage during “one of [his] fruitarian diets”. But in 2021, it’s hard not to think of a more Biblical connection, involving the fruit of a certain walled garden. After all, the tech giant has for decades presided over a closed ecosystem that it controls completely. Now that garden is under siege, attacked by powerful companies tired of paying Apple for the privilege of selling their products on iOS devices. We’d call it a tithe, were it not for the fact that a tithe is a ten per cent tax – Apple famously asks for 30 per cent, and it’s the size of that slice that has finally begun to rankle.

From the north comes Spotify, sick of attempting to compete with Apple Music on iOS, a rival service that gets to keep the entirety of its earnings on home turf. Spotify filed an official complaint with the EU in 2019. From the east comes Netflix, which stopped letting new customers sign up via the App Store, so as not to relinquish any subscription revenue to Apple. And from the south comes Epic Games.

Epic’s challenge is funded by the enormous success of Fortnite. Ironically, perhaps, for the developer of a game in which there can be only one winner, Epic is contesting that this is the entire problem: its stance is that Apple is only able to demand this cut because the App Store operates as a monopoly on iOS. And, true to battle royale form, Epic has taken a considerably more combative approach than either Spotify or Netflix in challenging Apple’s dominance, playing to the crowd as well as regulators. Last summer, Epic encouraged iOS