Apple is preparing to take its App Store fight with Epic Games back to the Supreme Court after the Ninth Circuit granted a stay pending Apple’s petition. The move keeps the dispute over Apple’s 27% fee on external app purchases alive for now, but it does not mean the justices have agreed to hear the case.
The legal battle has narrowed since Epic first sued in 2020 after Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store. Developers’ ability to link users to outside payment options is no longer the core fight. The live dispute is whether Apple can set a fee so high that outside payments stop being a practical alternative.
What Apple is asking for
TechCrunch reported that Apple is arguing both that the contempt ruling went too far and that courts are edging into platform-wide price regulation by restricting what it can charge developers who use external payment links. The same report said Apple views the 27% charge not as a simple payment-processing toll, but as compensation for the broader App Store ecosystem, including hosting, discovery, software, and developer tools.
Epic, by contrast, called the move a delay tactic and said only a few developers, including Spotify, Kindle, and Patreon, have used external payment links because Apple’s fee structure makes the math unattractive.
According to 9to5Mac, the Ninth Circuit had already unanimously denied Apple’s rehearing requests, leaving a Supreme Court petition as Apple’s clearest remaining option. The case has shifted since the original injunction: the question is no longer whether Apple must allow external links, but what kind of fee structure can survive once those links exist.
Why developers still do not have a clear answer
Developers still face a basic problem. Courts have already said Apple’s 27% fee defeats the purpose of allowing outside payments, but they have not said what rate would be acceptable instead. That leaves developers with a nominal right to link out and no settled economics around when doing so actually makes sense.
AppleInsider’s report on the Supreme Court phase captures the other issue likely to matter if the case moves forward: whether Apple was held in contempt for violating the 2021 injunction itself or for violating its intended purpose. Apple says it complied with the letter of the order by allowing external links. Epic and the lower courts argue that the fee preserved the same commercial outcome that the injunction was meant to break.
If the Supreme Court takes the case, it may end up deciding not just how far Apple can go in charging for outside payments, but how far courts can go in forcing a platform to make alternatives economically real rather than merely visible.
Also read: Apple’s clash with AI-built apps on the App Store is exposing a different set of platform rules.
