Apple has won a stay on an injunction that would have required the company to make significant changes to App Store guidelines including letting developers add alternative payment systems for in-app purchases. In the original Epic vs Apple ruling, issued on September 10, judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in favour of Apple on 9 out of the 10 counts but said that the company’s anti-steering laws were in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law, and issued an injunction saying the company cannot prohibit developers from "including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing." This injunction was set to go into effect on December 9, but Apple asked judge Rogers to stay it until the appeals filed by both Apple and Epic are resolved. But the company’s request was denied on November 9, after which it approached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has now granted the stay. Why this matters? The original ruling came as a relief to millions of app developers who have been repeatedly complaining about the high commission Apple and Google charge. Currently, developers pay a 15 to 30 percent commission to these companies on all in-app sales of digital goods and services. But this latest stay could possibly delay changes to the App Store guidelines for years as the higher court will now begin hearing Apple's arguments against the original ruling. Why was Apple granted a stay? According to the…
