The U.S. Court of Appeals placed a stay a prior ruling that Apple would need to allow developers to include links to alternative payment methods outside of Apple’s in-app payment system.
An injunction issued Wednesday afternoon doesn’t reverse the earlier ruling but does put the enforcement on hold until the appeals court can fully hear the case. That process will likely take months.
“Apple has demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court’s determination. Therefore, we grant Apple’s motion to stay part (i) of paragraph (1) of the permanent injunction. The stay will remain in effect until the mandate issues in this appeal,” reads the injunction.
The stay comes after Apple sought to delay the December 9th deadline to implement those changes on the App Store. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Apple’s delay request in November, accusing the company of attempting to extend the deadline by years.
It’s worth noting, however, that the stay only applies to the alternate payments portion of Rogers’ ruling, and not to the second part about user communications, which required Apple to allow developers to communicate with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers from within apps.
Moreover, The Verge points out that Apple will still be bound by its agreement with the Japan Fair Steering Commission, which will see the company let ‘reader’ apps (Netflix, Spotify, Amazon’s Kindle app, etc.) directly link their customers to their own sign-up sites.