Apple has submitted its opening merits brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, formally contesting a lower court's decision that held it in contempt over its compliance with an antitrust injunction from the Epic Games case. The injunction required Apple to let developers link to outside payment options, but Apple's move to charge commissions on those external purchases prompted Epic to challenge its compliance, leading a court to find Apple in contempt.
An update to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown shows Ubisoft experimenting with a new feature called Ubisoft Connect Services, which links a player's Ubisoft account without forcing them to install the full Ubisoft Connect client. Ubisoft says more of its Steam titles will eventually get this option, though no rollout timeline has been given.
Epic Games introduced Epic Parties, a voice chat system that works across Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, and the Epic Games app, regardless of the hardware players use. Users can start a call in one app and carry it seamlessly into another, and the chat can keep running in the background while playing other titles or using mobile devices. Accepting an Epic Party invite also automatically groups friends into the same Fortnite lobby.
Phil Schiller, who has led Apple's App Store since 2015 and joined the company in 1987, has stepped down from that role, according to Bloomberg. He'll remain at Apple as a Fellow working on unspecified projects, a title insiders view as a precursor to full retirement. Carson Oliver, a 14-year App Store veteran, will take over daily operations, and the App Store is shifting from marketing to Eddy Cue's services division.
Epic Games has filed a formal opposition to Apple's request to seal parts of its recent court filings on proposed commissions for purchases made outside the App Store via external links. Apple wants to redact financial figures, link-out adoption estimates, and developer survey data it calls commercially sensitive, but Epic argues the material is directly relevant to setting fair commission rates and should remain public. Epic also claims some of the data Apple wants hidden is either outdated or already publicly known.
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