Two regulators, two continents, one mechanism: Apple can no longer charge a flat 30% toll on everything that touches an iPhone. In April 2025 the European Commission fined Apple €500 million for violating the Digital Markets Act's anti-steering rule and ordered it to let developers link out to cheaper payment options for free. Days later, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in contempt of her Epic v. Apple injunction, killing the 27% fee Apple had tried to charge on external purchase links — the Ninth Circuit affirmed that contempt finding in December 2025, and the Supreme Court has now granted certiorari for its 2026 term. The result isn't Apple losing the App Store — it's Apple being forced to reprice its toll booth country by country, a slow bleed on take-rate that shows up in gross margin, not headlines.
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