If you're a Fortnite devotee still mourning the disappearance of your favorite game from your iPhone or iPad earlier this year, you'll be happy to hear that the game may be back. But perhaps not in the way you might have imagined.

The court case between Fortnite creators Epic Games and Apple is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon - in fact, it's not even expected to begin until May 2021 - but that may not matter: according to the BBC, Nvidia's GeForce Now streaming service is coming to iOS, along with Fortnite.

Those who have been following Apple's difficult relationship with game streaming services will know that this is not as simple as tapping the Fortnite icon on the iPhone home screen. Apple famously updated its terms and insisted that each streaming platform require a shell app for installed games, which makes the simplicity of something like Microsoft's Game Pass a bit more complicated.

For GeForce Now, apparently Nvidia's solution is to allow it to run via the Safari browser. While this may sound like a hacky workaround, it is actually condoned by Apple's own words, with the company telling The Verge in August that "developers can choose to reach all iPhone and iPad users on the web through Safari and other browsers in the App Store They can choose to reach all iPhone and iPad users on the web through Safari and other browsers in the App Store."

Troubling? Certainly. But will it provide a good in-game experience? On the one hand, GeForce Now's servers are significantly more powerful than the mighty iPhone 12, so it's likely to look better than ever. On the other hand, the nature of streaming will add latency, which could be further exacerbated by being stuck in Safari rather than in a native, optimized app.

The good news is that players won't have to pay to find out how it works; Fortnite on PC is free to play, as are other platforms, and may appear in the GeForce Now library at no additional charge. GeForce Now also has a $5/month paid tier with optional ray tracing and faster access, but anyone can play without paying a cent for a limited time.

In any case, this is a bit of a strange situation, especially given the proven popularity of Fortnite on iOS. According to documents filed with the court, prior to the ban, the game had 116 million users on iOS, 73 million of whom played exclusively on mobile. Of those 73 million played only on mobile. During this time, they had logged 2.86 billion hours worth of gameplay.

But we ended up here after Epic Games tried to use this great statistic as leverage to escape the penalty of Apple's 30% cut of microtransactions... Epic didn't negotiate behind the scenes, but rather let Apple cut, but instead offered players a lower-priced in-app purchase option. This was enough for Apple to ban one of its most popular apps, disappointing millions of players.

It may be years before this situation is resolved by the courts in favor of Apple or Epic. So for now, this is the best way for iPhone owners to play Fortnite, barring playing on another platform.