On Friday, Epic Games announced that Apple was not going to approve their long-awaited iOS version of the Epic Games Store for the European Union market. It claimed Apple was rejecting some of the naming conventions in the store, along with button designs.
Epic stated that it used names found on other app stores on other platforms and that the buttons on the store are similar to what were found in other iOS apps. It said that Apple"s decision to reject the Epic Games Store violated the EU"s Digital Markets Act, and planned to infon the EU"s regulatory body, the European Commission.
Later on Friday, Epic announced that Apple did a 180 and approved the iOS European Union Epic Games Store. As it turns out, however, that is not quite the end of this dispute.
According to AppleInsider, an unnamed spokesperson for Apple stated that while it will allow the the EU iOS Epic Games Store to be published for now, the company still claims that the buttons that are used on the store will need to be changed before the store has to be approved again for iOS devices.
This response caused Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to write a post on his own X account. He stated:
Apple’s DMA saga has taken a turn towards the absurd. Apple is now telling reporters that this approval is temporary and are demanding we change the buttons in the next version - which would make our store less standard and harder to use. We’ll fight this.
So far, we have not seen the buttons on the iOS Epic Games Store that remain the center of the company"s dispute with Apple. There"s also no word on what Apple might do if it feels Epic did not "fix" the buttons on the store.
Epic still expects to launch the iOS Epic Games Store sometime in the next couple of months for EU markets.