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Comment by daveoc64 | Hacker News Reader

Epic needs access to Apple's developer tools and documentation to continue developing the Unreal Engine software and libraries for macOS and iOS.

Without access to those things, it would be difficult for Epic to produce new versions of the Unreal Engine, and game developers wouldn't want to use it any more.

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Yes but any developer can have his or her own account that gives access to every tool, only for pushing software to the store it's vital to have that one particular account for Epic. Epic will lose perks like direct access to performance tuning teams at Apple, but that's not something you can't do without.

So "difficult" would mean that you need to improvise a bit, but they're still able to develop just like any developer. If you want to put your own cocoapod out, you don't need a developer license to do so and if someone else wants to use your cocoapod they just need their own developer account.

Legally Epic would lose access to all Apple developer IP including iOS SDKs and Xcode. You have to click through an EULA to access this stuff. And you can bet that Apple would have sought a court order to enforce it, had they prevailed.

Just a note, this isn't past tense. The court case is only beginning. This was only about the initial injunction. The court just told Apple and Epic "cool it, stop fighting each other in public and harming your customers, fight each other in court".

Got it. Thanks.

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