Apple fails to delay filing new App Store fees to court

Apple is being forced to detail fees it wants to charge for outbound links in its continuing legal fight with Epic, and now it’s only got 24 hours to file them.

The ever-ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games over what Apple should charge apps within the App Store has hit a snag for the iPhone maker. In the current phase, the two are fighting in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California over new fee proposal.

According to X posts by Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney on Tuesday, Apple attempted to delay a filing of proposed fees to the court. To Sweeney’s glee, that stay was denied.

As a consequence, Apple’s legal team now has just 24 hours to file the proposal with the court. After that Epic will have 60 days to analyze the proposal and make its own filing with the court.

Sweeney continued with a second post to X about the legal activity, asking if Apple will “honestly document their costs for human reviewer time and seek to recoup them?” Alternately, he proposes Apple may “fabricate outlandish new notions of cost previously unknown to mankind.”

As it stands, Epic and commentators have another 24-hour wait before finding that out.

How Apple got here

Apple and Epic have been in a lengthy battle that started with “Fortnite” letting players make in-app purchases using a third-party payment processor, against App Store rules. Epic also made demands that included allowing alternate app storefronts in iOS, and a change in the commission structure.

Apple did come out of the lawsuit pretty well, succeeding in many areas but failing to fend off changes to anti-steering measures, namely preventing developers from sending users to other processors to pay. Apple was ordered to make changes.

Epic convinced a court in April 2025 that Apple didn’t follow the spirit of the law, which led to more legal activity.

The latest action is midway through a schedule to discuss changes in App Store fees for outbound links, which goes back to May 2026.

Apple was given 45 days to file a “proffer,” or a good-faith offer of evidence and testimony to the court, with a 10-day timer to hand Epic non-privileged documents about the decision-making process after that. Five days later, Apple was to meet with Epic to discuss the privilege log and decide what documents warrant further review by a third party.

Today’s stay denial is at this point in the process.

Afterwards, Epic has 60 days to file its own response to the court, in a 30-page document. Apple would then have another 30 days to file a reply.

A Fortnite foible

While Sweeney’s tweets are chiefly about the lawsuit, there was an odd element about “Fortnite” and the Mac. In response to a question about what the decision means for the game on macOS, Sweeney said “We are rapidly approaching an endgame that will determine that one way or another.”

Currently, “Fortnite” is unavailable on macOS, but it seems to be less about being blocked and more Epic refusing to use the platform for its premier game.

At the time of the initial legal fight, Epic’s developer accounts were frozen out by Apple. However, in March 2024, Epic confirmed that Apple would reinstate its account in the EU.

Though celebratory in tone for the prospect of getting the game out on iOS, Epic didn’t discuss macOS at all.

As it stands, there doesn’t seem to be anything standing in Epic’s way from releasing “Fortnite” on macOS at all.

It has its own Epic Games Store on macOS, which can be used to make purchases completely outside of Apple’s App Store system. Also, developers can send Mac apps for notarization and still be distributed outside of the App Store itself, which Epic surely could handle with its reinstated developer account.