It seems that a bill that is currently under consideration in North Dakota could be something that might put Apple in trouble if it passes. However, even if it does pass, it will only be available to the residents of the state and not the entirety of The United States (yet). This might also be an opportunity for Apple to pull their devices being sold in that State as well.
A new North Dakota Bill seeks to challenge Apple’s practices
2020 was a memorable year for many reasons, but one of them was for the lawsuit that came out of nowhere when Epic Games broke Apple App Store and Google Play Store rules by circumventing each respective stores payment methods and instead encouraging Fortnite players to buy directly from the Epic Store payment portal.
Fortnite lived a short life on the Google Play Store. It was allowed to join the store on April 2020 and was booted off it in August 2020. The App store version of Fortnite has been on the servers since April 2018 and was also booted off the App Store on August 2020.
While there are a number of ways for players to continue playing Fortnite on Android, whether by directly installing the APK from the games official site, or by other third-party stores like TapTap or Aptoide.
The North Dakota bill aims to make Apple allow for competing App Stores to enter the Apple ecosystem, this is something that Epic Games has been fighting ardently since August 2020, and the litigation is continuing right now.
In summary, it looks like the bill will allow for Apple to have apps similar to Aptoide on Android and similar app stores to enter the iOS ecosystem.
The bill is currently only restricted to residents of North Dakota and there are hopes that should it pass in the state, it could be made to pass across the United States as well.
For now, Apple is backed in a very tight corner with this bill as it could make or break the company’s presence in the state. Many people speculate that if the bill were to pass in the state, Apple could just suspend sales of their products in North Dakota.
This is similar to how Tesla car sales were temporarily banned in Michigan, but still managed it to the roads of that state.