Apple can’t dismiss Cydia’s amended antitrust lawsuit, judge says

Apple’s attempt to dismiss an amended antitrust lawsuit filed by the creator of Cydia, an app store for jailbroken iPhones, has failed (via Reuters). California District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Thursday denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the case and gives the company 21 days to respond to the lawsuit filed by Cydia.
Cydia developer Jay Freeman (who also goes by the username Saurik) first filed a complaint against Apple in 2020. The complaint alleges that Apple “wrongly acquired and maintained monopoly power” in the distribution and iOS app payments, ultimately “depriving” third-party app stores of “the ability to compete with the App Store”. Cydia appeared before Apple’s App Store even existed and allowed users to find and download third-party apps for jailbroken devices. Freeman closed the Cydia store in 2018.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers — the same judge who handed down a mixed decision for the Epic v. Apple lawsuit — dismissed the case in January, citing that Freeman’s claims were outside the four-year statute of limitations for antitrust lawsuits. Gonzalez Rogers still gave Freeman the opportunity to amend the complaint, which he did.
The new complaint claims that from 2018 to 2021, Apple implemented “more aggressive” changes to iOS that would have prevented Cydia and other alternative app stores from providing “usable” apps for iPhones. Apple again sought to close the lawsuit filed on the grounds that the allegations occurred outside the statute of limitations, but Gonzalez Rodger denied the motion to dismiss. The edge contacted Apple with a request for comment, but did not immediately respond.
In 2020, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Apple over Fortnitefrom the App Store — Apple expelled fortnite for offering an alternate payment option, allowing Epic to bypass Apple’s up to 30% commission on in-app purchases. Epic filed a similar lawsuit against Google around the same time, which is expected to go to trial in 2023. Earlier this month, Match Group, the company behind Tinder, OkCupid, and Hinge also filed a lawsuit against Google for its payment restrictions on the Play Store.
In addition to app developers, Apple has come under scrutiny from government agencies. While the Netherlands slapped a series of fines on the company for banning Dutch dating apps from using their own billing systems, South Korea passed a law requiring Apple and Google to let developers incorporate third-party payment processors. The US and EU are also working to clamp down on the power of big tech companies, with the EU set to enact the Digital Markets Act next year, and the US moving forward with the Digital Markets Act. open application markets, designed to promote competition in mobile computing. .