An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple failed to persuade a federal judge to push back a December deadline to change the lucrative business model for its App Store while the iPhone maker’s legal fight with Epic Games is appealed. Unless the iPhone maker wins a reprieve from an appeals court, it will soon have to start allowing developers to steer customers to payment methods outside the App Store, an overhaul the judge ordered in September that could cost the tech giant a few billion dollars annually. Apple asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers to put on hold a part of the injunction that said the company must undo its rule forbidding developers from using web links or other means within apps to inform consumers about payment methods outside the App Store. “Apple’s motion is based on a selective reading of this court’s findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction,” Rogers said in an order Tuesday. “The motion is fundamentally flawed.”

“Apple believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals in this case are resolved,” the company said in a statement. While Apple largely won its showdown with Epic, the world’s most valuable technology company isn’t out of danger from challenges to its role as a gatekeeper to the digital economy. The iPhone maker continues to face a plethora of antitrust lawsuits in and outside the U.S seeking to open up the App Store to competition, monopolization enforcement investigations brought by federal and state agencies, and legislative bids to restrict its business practices. Bloomberg Intelligence has said that pressure on Apple to lower its App Store commissions on developers, which currently run as high as 30%, could squeeze revenue by $2 billion to $4 billion in a worst-case scenario.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Apple Can’t Delay App Store December Deadline As Epic Legal Battle Continues