Cydia’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple may continue, Reuters reported. Last week, judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is handling the lawsuit between Apple and Epic Games, ruled that a claim against the company could be filed by refusing to accept Apple’s request from Cydia creator Jay “Saurik” Freeman to dismiss the lawsuit.
Freeman originally sued Apple at the end of 2020, claiming that the company had an illegal monopoly over iOS app distribution. Judge Gonzalez Rogers dismissed Cydia’s initial complaint against Apple and ruled that the case fell outside of the statute of limitations. But at the same time, he gave Freeman permission to renew his case, and thus the new case appeared.
In its latest complaint, Cydia argues that the iOS updates Apple released between 2018 and 2021 consist of “clear” rules that harm distributors like itself. This is a claim that Judge Gonzalez Rogers found credible enough to investigate.
“The plaintiff’s claims are appropriate to the extent that they are based on Apple’s technological updates that prevented Cydia from fully functioning,” the Judge said in its decision.
Cydia is seeking compensation from Apple (the company stopped its acquisitions in 2018) and hopes to force the tech giant to open up iOS to third-party payments and app distributors. Opening the App Store to more competition is something US lawmakers are also considering. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently began pushing forward the Open Application Markets Act debate. If the law goes into effect, it will force Apple to allow external installation on iOS and prevent the company from locking developers into the payment system.
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