Australia orders Apple to allow rival iPhone app stores from March 2027
The Federal Court of Australia ruled on 22 October 2026 that Apple must let iPhone owners signed in with Australian Apple Accounts install apps from third-party stores and from websites, and must let developers take payments outside the App Store, with the changes due to start on 1 March 2027. Justice Jonathan Beach's remedies judgment, cited as Epic Games Inc v Apple Inc (No 2) [2026] FCA 1552, follows his 2025 finding that Apple misused its market power, and separately orders Fortnite back onto the Australian App Store as soon as Epic asks for it in writing. Apple, ordered to pay 85% of Epic's trial costs, has applied for a stay and is appealing; the stay application is listed for hearing on 16 December 2026.
The details
- Justice Jonathan Beach of the Federal Court of Australia handed down his remedies decision in Epic Games Inc v Apple Inc (No 2) [2026] FCA 1552 on 22 October 2026, following his 2025 ruling that Apple had breached Australian competition law in the case brought by Epic Games.
- From 1 March 2027 Apple must allow iPhone users with Australian Apple Accounts to install apps from third-party app stores and directly from websites, the practice usually called sideloading.
- Apple may apply by 15 February 2027 to push that compliance date back to 3 May 2027, but the extension only takes effect if the court approves it.
- Developers will be able to use payment providers other than Apple's, link users out to those alternatives from inside their apps, and charge lower prices for purchases made outside Apple's payment system.
- Apple must supply the developer tools and APIs that alternative distribution requires on substantially the same terms as App Store developers get, may not charge a fee simply for access to those alternative distribution channels, and faces limits on certain fees levied on external payments, with no percentage figure for those capped fees yet published.
- The orders also stop Apple from requiring developers to report alternative-payment transactions to it, or to offer Apple's own payment system alongside the payment option they prefer.
- Apple won several points: it may keep its notarisation and security-scanning requirements for apps distributed outside the App Store, it is not obliged to distribute competing marketplaces through its own App Store, and the judge declined to extend the injunctions beyond Australia to the rest of the world.
- Apple was ordered to pay 85% of Epic Games' legal costs from the original trial, with the costs of the later remedies hearings reserved.
- The order readmitting Fortnite and other eligible Epic apps to the Australian App Store takes effect immediately on a written application from Epic rather than on the March 2027 deadline, and Fortnite returned to the Australian App Store that week under an interim arrangement that applies the same rules as other developers, Apple's payment requirements included.
- The August 2025 Federal Court verdict behind these remedies, which ran to more than 2,000 pages, found that both Apple and Google had misused their market power in running their app stores and singled out their 30% in-app commissions; third-party app stores are already permitted in the European Union, Brazil and Japan, while in the United States they remain barred and developers may only link out to external payments.
- Apple has applied to stay the orders pending its appeal; MLex reported that the stay application is listed for hearing on 16 December 2026, and no stay of the 1 March 2027 compliance date has been granted, so the deadline stands while the application is heard.