Developers in the United States pay Apple absolutely nothing when a customer taps a link inside an app and buys something through a third-party payment system.
That arrangement, which sounds like a win for developers, is actually what Apple is desperately trying to unwind at the Supreme Court.
Apple filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on May 4, asking the justices to freeze the next phase of its long-running legal battle with Epic Games before it goes any further.
The specific thing Apple wants to pause is a court-ordered process to determine the fee Apple may charge for link-out purchases going forward.
Why Apple Is Calling This an Emergency
Apple’s argument is layered. The company says being forced to litigate the amount it can charge, while already carrying a contempt-of-court label, is fundamentally unfair.
A contempt finding, Apple argues, poisons the well before the math even starts. On top of that, the fee-calculation process would require Apple to hand over confidential business information that, once disclosed, cannot be withdrawn.
There is also a much bigger audience watching this than just the American courts. Regulators in other countries are paying close attention to whatever commission rate gets set here, because they plan to use it as a benchmark for what Apple can charge in their own markets.
Apple’s filing says it plainly: no fee-setting proceeding should happen under what it calls the false premise that it willfully broke the rules.
How We Got Here
The backstory begins with a 2021 court order requiring Apple to allow developers to direct users to external payment options.
Apple technically allowed those links, but it kept charging fees only slightly lower than its standard cut.
Courts found that the arrangement violated the spirit of the injunction, and Apple was held in contempt. By April 2025, a judge had barred Apple from collecting any fee at all on those transactions.
Apple appealed, and the Ninth Circuit agreed Apple had violated the original order but also said Apple deserves some payment for its platform technology.
So the appeals court sent the case back to a lower court to figure out a fair number. That fee-calculation process is exactly what Apple wants the Supreme Court to put on ice.
What Happens Next Depends on One Decision
The Ninth Circuit initially agreed to pause things while Apple prepared its Supreme Court petition, but reversed that decision after Epic Games pushed back.
Now Apple is making the same request to a higher court, and the deadline is uncomfortably tight. The mandate sending this back to the district court was set to kick in on May 5.
Apple has signaled its filing could double as a petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case outright.
One of the central questions Apple wants the justices to address is whether the original injunction applies only to Epic or to every developer in the country. That distinction alone could reshape how the whole App Store operates for years.
