Apple can’t delay costly court-ordered app store change beyond December

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 that said the company must undo its rule forbidding developers from using web links or other means within apps to inform consumers about payment methods outside the App Store.