> Apple is entirely in its rights to terminate Epic Games’ developer account and all related functionality, but SIWA will continue to function for two weeks.
Ok, let’s translate it:
1) Apple believes it’s entirely in its rights to terminate Epic’s dev account and is doing so
2) Apple also believes it’s in their right to kill all related account functionally, but they aren’t, specifically with SIWA, for at least two weeks.
3) they don’t specify what will happen after two weeks, as that likely depends on several factors. We later learn that they extended it indefinitely.
So there’s multiple possible scenarios:
A) Apple really is just threatening as you indicated, but not being blatantly direct about it. Possible, but not the only possibility, and not usually their style from what I’ve seen for something like this, but who knows. I feel if Apple really wanted to threaten, they’d make the threat explicit and say “after two weeks of non-compliance, we will terminate everything”.
B) Apple is stalling making a decision over if SIWA will continue to be available to Epic’s users to ensure the SIWA team can support it when the dev account is deactivated. From other rumors where we hear folks saying SIWA team did have to make changes, I’m thinking this was the likely scenario. Don’t make a commitment to keep something going if you can’t deliver on it for sure yet, so “give them a two week extension” so you learn if you can actually keep SIWA up. If they can’t and Epic is still fighting with Fire, maybe you do terminate SIWA, but maybe not. Either way, Apple wins.
C) Apple is stalling a decision to scare Epic into compliance after Epic’s users backlash over word it might end. Possible, but I think Epic had well shown they were ready to play the Russian roulette game with Apple down to the last chamber, so I’m thinking less likely than A/B.
So if I was a betting man, I’d say it’s a mixed bag at best, but would likely go:
B > A > C
Apple doesn’t play checkers, they play chess. When they send a letter like that, they ensure there’s multiple positive outcomes for them for any potential scenario, from technical complications, to user perception, to legal proceedings, etc.