On October 9th, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Files an Appeal in Epic Games Case that could potentially delay changes to the App Store for years."

In a new Bloomberg report published late today they noted that "Apple Inc. failed to persuade a federal judge to push back a December deadline to change the lucrative business model for its App Store while the iPhone maker’s legal fight with Epic Games Inc. is appealed.

Unless the iPhone maker wins a reprieve from an appeals court, it will soon have to start allowing developers to steer customers to payment methods outside the App Store, an overhaul the judge ordered in September that could cost the tech giant a few billion dollars annually.

Apple asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers to put on hold a part of the injunction while it appeals.

Rogers said in her order that 'Apple’s motion is based on a selective reading of this court’s findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction. The motion is fundamentally flawed.'" For more on this, read the full report at BNN Bloomberg.

A report by Courthouse News Service provided more detail as follows:

Apple attorney Mark Perry pleaded with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers at a hearing Tuesday to grant a stay that would indefinitely extend a Dec. 9 deadline for Apple to comply with her injunction, which says Apple must stop "prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to in-app purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app."

Gonzalez Rogers took arguments under submission, then promptly issued a ruling denying Apple's motion.

She found the injunction, while inconvenient for Apple, will not cause the harm that the tech giant predicts.

"The court can envision numerous avenues for Apple to comply with the injunction and yet take steps to protect users, to the extent that Apple genuinely believes that external links would create issues," she wrote.

"The court is not convinced, but nor is it here to micromanage," she added. "Consumers are quite used to linking from an app to a web browser. Other than, perhaps, needing time to establish guidelines, Apple has provided no credible reason for the court to believe that the injunction would cause the professed devastation. Links can be tested by App Review. Users can open browsers and retype links to the same effect; it is merely inconvenient, which then, only works to the advantage of Apple."

Perry said Apple has already satisfied the second part of Gonzalez Rogers’ order via a settlement with developers in a different case, but that adding external links and buttons to alternate payment mechanisms would introduce unknown security and privacy risks that threaten Apple’s entire ability to operate.

"These have never been allowed for digital content and allowing them now would permit bad actors to hijack the links, to take children and other users to places that none of us wants them to be, to steal their money, and to steal their data," he said. "It takes someone from within an app to the outside wide world without controls and restrictions."

Gonzalez Rogers' ruling expressed terse disagreement. While Apple could have requested more time to comply with order, she noted instead that: "It wants an open-ended stay with no requirement that it make any effort to comply. Time is not irreparable injury."  For more, read the full Courthouse News Service report.