Cydia’s Antitrust Case Against Apple May Continue, According to † On Thursday, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the same judge who oversaw the ruling Cydia’s creator, Jay “Saurik” Freeman, was able to file his claim against the company after rejecting an offer from Apple to dismiss the complaint.
Freeman came first at the end of 2020, claiming the company had an “illegal monopoly on iOS app distribution”. Judge Gonzalez Rogers dismissed Cydia’s initial complaint against Apple, ruling that the lawsuit was out of statute of limitations. But she also gave Freeman permission to change his case, which he did. In its latest complaint, Cydia argues that iOS updates Apple released between 2018 and 2021 were “overt” acts that harmed distributors like themselves. That’s a claim Judge Gonzalez Rogers found credible enough to investigate.
“To the extent that Plaintiff’s claims are based on Apple’s technological updates to prevent Cydia from fully functioning, those claims are timely,” the judge said in its ruling.
Cydia is suing Apple (the company in 2018) and hopes to force the tech giant to open up iOS to payments from third parties and app distributors. Opening the App Store to more competition is something US lawmakers are also considering, most recently with the Senate Judiciary Committee. If in effect, the law would force Apple to allow sideloading on iOS and prevent the company from locking developers into its payment system.
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