Fortnite ’s lengthy exile from the iPhone and iPad looks set to terminate soon , at least in the EU . Having declared back in January its intention to bring the popular biz back to Io in 2024 , Epic Games today gas that it will also return to iPadOS this year .
Back in 2020 , Epic tested the bound of Apple ’s App Store policies by adding a direct defrayment option to the game . Apple , predictably , responded byremoving Fortnitefrom its platform ( Google did the same ) and cancel the company ’s developer account . While Epic ’s news report has since beenreinstated , Fortnite remains unavailable in the App Store .
The companies have spent the last three and a one-half years litigating the difference to see whether it is legitimate for app storehouse owners to forbid direct defrayment options , among other issues . On a world-wide scale that remain unresolved , but the Digital Markets Act ( DMA ) appears to adjudicate the matter in Epic ’s favor in the EU . Indeed it extend further and sets the stage for developers to sell iOS apps via their own stores , with more parallel of latitude and depressed fees as ofiOS 17.4 . ( Albeit perhapsnot very much lower . )
The DMA affects tech fellowship in numerous ways and Apple itself has acknowledged that it “ expect to makefurther business changes ” as a effect of the legislation . And a triumphal Epictweetedin January that “ afterwards this year Fortnite will return in Europe on iOS through the @EpicGames Store , ” explicitly thanking the DMA for make this recurrence possible . It ’s not clear when Apple will abide by with the ruling , but presumably in the fall with iOS 18 at the latest .
Today , the European Commission said that iPads will also need to follow with the Digital Markets Act 🙌 We ’re go full steam forwards to bring Fortnite and the@EpicGamesStore to iPhones in the EU shortly and iPads this year ! 🎉 https://t.co/MHh6EGVinC
All of which brings us at long last up to engagement , and to today ’s tweet self-praise that the European Commission has rein that the iPad is open to the same law and that Fortnite ( and Epic ’s store ) will look on the iPad before the death of 2024 . This is bad news program for Apple , but it ’s hard to differ that it ’s well news for iPad owners in the EU , assume Apple does n’t have some counterploy up its arm .
