Major win for Epic Games: Apple has 90 days to open up app store payments

On Friday, the Northern California judge handling the closely watched Epic Games v. Apple court case turned in a ruling that, in many ways, works out in Apple's favor-but with one massive, App Store-changing exception.

The ruling from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers includes a single-page permanent injunction demanding that Apple open up payment options for any software sellers on the App Store. In other words, Epic Games' effort to add Epic-specific payment links inside the free-to-play game Fortnite, and thus duck out of paying Apple's 30 percent fee on in-app transactions, can now happen.

This is a massive blow to Apple's money printing machine, since it means both applications as well as gambling apps (or games" as Apple refers to them) can now circumvent Apple's 30% protection racket. Since the vast majority of App Store revenue - and thus, the vast majority of Apple's services revenue - comes from exploitative gambling apps, this will have a major impact on Apple's current strategy of sucking as much money out of Candy Crush whales.