Last week we saw a war between Apple and Fortnite developer Epic Games begin, and now it appears that Apple has escalated the battle.
Apple has threatened to terminate all of Epic Games' developer accounts and cut the company off from iOS and Mac development tools. Apple says it'll cut Epic off by August 28 if the Fortnite maker doesn't "cure this breach" by allowing players to make in-app purchases without using Apple's IAP system.
"It told Epic that by August 28, Apple will cut off Epic’s access to all development tools necessary to create software for Apple’s platforms — including for the Unreal Engine Epic offers to third-party developers, which Apple has never claimed violated any Apple policy," Epic explained in a new filing with a Northern California court.
In this filing, Epic is asking the court to prevent Apple from "taking any adverse action against Epic", including restricting or terminating Epic from Apple's Developer Program. Epic has also asked the court to prevent Apple from de-listing, removing, or refusing to list Fortnite in the App Store.
If Apple does terminate Epic's developer account, Epic would also lose the ability to distribute iOS apps. So this is a pretty serious retaliation from Apple. The iPhone maker hasn't issued any sort of official statement or response to today's news, but we'll let you know if that changes.