Fortnite is back on iPhones in the US — here's what we know

After multiple years, most of which has been spent in and out of court, it seems Epic Games has finally won its spat with Apple. Fortnite is officially back in the App Store in the U.S., meaning it's available to download and play on iPhones and iPads right now.

Fortnite announced this news over on X, putting an end to a four year spell where the app was banned from Apple's platform.

Sadly the change only applies to the U.S. — EU users still have to download Fortnite from either AltStore or the Epic Game Store, while other regions are completely cut off from the game.

Unsurprisingly Fortnite shot to the top of the App Store charts, and is now the number 1 free game in the U.S.

The story so far

You may have heard this story a lot in the past few weeks, but let's recap. Apple and Epic's legal feud began back in 2020, when Epic decided it was tired of paying Apple and Google a 30% commission on all microtransactions made in Fortnite. Attempting to bypass the system by sending users straight to Epic's store on the web.

This made Apple and Google angry, with Fortnite being pulled from the App Store and Google Play. This wasn't so bad for Android, since sideloading is possible, but Apple's walled garden meant Fortnite was shut out from all Apple devices.

This led to lawsuits, and a 2021 court ruling against Apple that should have forced the company to allow off-app payment options in the U.S. Earlier this year the courts ruled Apple hadn't complied with this ruling.

The judge pointed out that taking a commission on off-app payments, and imposing measures designed to stop users reaching off-app payments were a violation of the previous injunction — and the company was told to cut it out. Apple said it would comply, but would appeal the ruling.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Epic was able to take advantage of the EU's Digital Markets Act which forced Apple to open up to third party App Stores. While the way Apple implemented these app stores has been controversial, and Epic's EU developer account was briefly banned for being "verifiably untrustworthy," Fortnite has been available on iOS since last year — just not via the Apple App Store.

Apple doesn't seem to want Fortnite back

Epic Games was pretty happy when the courts ruled against Apple earlier this month. CEO Tim Sweeney announced that the company would be submitting Fortnite to Apple for U.S. App Store review that week, and it seemed pretty hopeful the game would return to the platform.

Unfortunately a week went by and Fortnite's review status was left in limbo, with Epic claiming there had been no communication from Apple. No approval or rejection, just stone-cold silence. Epic then had to pull the update and submit a new one, because Fortnite on other platforms had a pending content update — and the iOS version had to be the same.

Later it looked like Fortnite submissions had been blocked by Apple in the U.S. and EU, effectively taking the game down in both regions. Apple said this was not a deliberate action to remove Fortnite from the EU app stores, and that Epic simply needed to resubmit without the U.S. version of the app.

The company did not specify what was happening with the U.S. release at the time., and as late as yesterday Epic CEO Tim Sweeney still claimed that Apple was delaying the update. He claimed Apple's pulling of the U.S. version was "an obstructive legal maneuver."

But now, Fortnite is back. And hopefully Apple will keep on top of new updates as and when they arrive for review. Because, as Sweeney says, Fortnite can't operate without timely updates — and it's unlikely the company would stand by idly if it felt Apple was slighting it.

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