Spotify Says Apple Won't Approve New Version Of Its App Because It Doesn't Want Competition For Apple Music (recode.net) 327
According to a report on Recode, Apple has rejected an update to Spotify's iOS app, and that this has caused a "grave harm to Spotify and its customers." The Swedish-based music company competes with Apple's Music streaming app and service. In a letter to Apple's top lawyer, Spotify says that Apple turned down a version of the app citing "business model rules" and demanded that Spotify uses Apple's billing system if it wants to acquire new customers and sell subscriptions. From the report:The letter, sent by Spotify general counsel Horacio Gutierrez to Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell on May 26, suggests that Spotify intends to use the standoff as ammunition in its fight over Apple's rules governing subscription services that use its App store. "This latest episode raises serious concerns under both U.S. and EU competition law," Gutierrez wrote. "It continues a troubling pattern of behavior by Apple to exclude and diminish the competitiveness of Spotify on iOS and as a rival to Apple Music, particularly when seen against the backdrop of Apple's previous anticompetitive conduct aimed at Spotify ... we cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon to harm competitors."
Walled garden (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Walled garden (Score:5, Informative)
Apple was already charging more per month for a Spotify subscription than what you'd pay by going through Spotify. You could subscribe through Spotify for $9.99, but if you subscribed through iTunes I think it was $12.99.
Apple is just making sure they get a hefty cut of what Spotify is doing, while adding no value.
Re:Walled garden (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
spotify was always free to disable subs via the app and only do them via the website and spend their own money marketing their service
There are plenty of apps that do this. Hulu and Netflix are among them.
Re: (Score:2)
No, Spotify is the company which decides how much to charge for their subscriptions within Apple's App Store. They have decided to add the cost of Apple's billing fee to their subscription rate.
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's certainly not worth 1/3 the base subscription fee.
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't, until Apple becomes big enough, then they have no choice...
That is why the anti-trust issues come in, Apple is large enough they should know better.
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:4, Insightful)
But are they big enough? All the numbers I've seen show Apple to be a rather small portion of the smartphone market, and that's just in the US. Outside the US, they're tiny. Of course, there's also data showing that iPhone users are much more likely to spend money on apps than Android users, but as a portion of the market itself, Apple is not dominant. They merely hold a very lucrative niche.
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:5, Insightful)
1) the hosting costs of serving their application
2) Set up a payment gateway, processor, PCI compliance.. etc..
3) Provides metrics for small developers, a user-feedback system, an automatic update mechanism
4) A sales strategy that helps get smaller app developers noticed.
Searching in the App store is more small-developer friendly than searching in Google. If we used google for searching for our app games, all we would ever find is EA, and other developers wouldn't be as successful. The model works and the ecosystem is a testament to that.
and I can't state this enough
5) Providing a lot of small developers a robust QA department.
Can you image the plethora of crash, buggy, shitty, malware-ridden, infected, suspicious, devious, dubious, and malicious apps we would have if we all downloaded apps off random web-pages instead of the curated app store?
I don't feel like looking through all the slashdot articles on the various bugs and crap that have come out on Android, and friends of mine who are devout Android users have remarked how much better the iOS app versions seem to be. There is nothing you could get me to do to leave the curated app store, even there are downsides to the curation. Some apps get banned for content or purpose (porn, political satire) reducing selection. Also, Apple isn't perfect, and providing a high quality product does lead the consumer to believe the apps must be for all intents and purposes, perfect. So they may be less likely to practice computing safety. Suspicions attachment in email? In outlook, you listen to the warning. On an iPhone, you feel like theres not much it that can break, but there still issues that get through.
But, can you imagine if Microsoft did this for Windows EXEs? We wouldn't have as many of the shitty anti-virus, anti-malware, any-spyware, toolbar-removing, homepage-changing, crap-vertizing safety apps we have on PCs today. Not having to deal with that mess on my phone, priceless, and well worth the 30% overhead on my measly app costs, considering most really useful apps are free anyway, where Apple just absorbs these costs itself.
The real complaints come from the big guys, who have all this infrastructure. This is why you can't subscribe to Office365 via the Office apps. This is why there is no Autocad purchasable on the iPad. Their costs take into account all these functions, without having to subsidize it for free Apps. But they have their own sales channels and the app is seen as a "bolt-on". Just like the app that comes with your company phone system.
The real problem here occurs when you have hyper-competitive markets like song-streaming. Spotify, AM, Pandora, they all fight every contract and deal they make for fractions of pennies due to the micro-margins and huge throughput in their business models. That causes them to penny-pinch for the cost savings they need to be competitive. Those markets are now butting up against Apple's hard and fast "We didn't negotiate with Microsoft for Office, why would we negotiate with you? The rules are posted on the website right there!" rules for cost-sharing. And they are not happy about it.
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not really the problem; I mean yes, it is part of the problem, but it is not the core problem. If every vendor had to pay that percentage for Apple's payment processing, those companies could continue to fight for every cent, but they would be competing on equal terms. The problem is that Apple itself is in the music streaming market, and by requiring everyone else to use Apple's payment service (on which Apple makes a profit) instead of much cheaper third-party payment services, it is effectively granting Apple an unfair competitive advantage over everyone else in that space, because they can choose to not take the extra profit on the transactions themselves, and thus can offer their own music service for considerably less money than anyone else.
Now if Apple is willing to give 30% of their Apple Music revenue to music charities to level the playing field, that's fine (and musicians everywhere would love it if they did), but otherwise, what they're doing is blatantly anticompetitive, in addition to undeniably harming consumers by tricking iOS users into paying a higher price for the same goods and services solely because they happen to have downloaded the app and subscribed through the app rather than going to the company's website and buying a subscription before downloading the app. (BTW, I reject the entire notion that Apple "brought those customers to the table". Most people who get apps do so after hearing about them outside the App Store. Almost nobody I know has ever discovered anything in the App Store without searching for it; the store is just too big for that to be practical.)
The thing is, lots of folks pointed out all of these problems way back when Apple first announced their in-app purchase rules, and it has been an ongoing battle ever since. Eventually, it is going to come down to an antitrust suit, which Apple is likely to lose. And that will also be bad for consumers, because the app store rules do have a valid purpose—making it so that users don't have to give out their credit card to every random app that they do business with.
IMO, the only solution that won't harm consumers is for Apple to change their rules so that the "in-app purchases only" rule has an explicit exception for subscriptions to services that are also available on non-mobile platforms via a website. This would basically cover all the interesting edge cases, would cause Apple minimal financial impact in the long run, and would prevent this from turning into an ugly lawsuit where everyone loses.
Re: "Adding no Value" (Score:2)
Your proposed solution sounds good, but my issue with it is that the App Store does not cost Apple $0 to operate. So if they gave away their 30%, that would harm them disproportionately since they would then also have to provide for their App Store team.
It's a tough nut to crack. They should be free t
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that Apple itself is in the music streaming market, and by requiring everyone else to use Apple's payment service (on which Apple makes a profit) instead of much cheaper third-party payment services, it is effectively granting Apple an unfair competitive advantage
It is not just the profit either. Apple then also has full insight into competitors revenue streams on its platform (ie strategic insider financial information).
Hard to believe it is legal.
Re: (Score:2)
Your proposed solution sounds good, but my issue with it is that the App Store does not cost Apple $0 to operate.
Of course not, but it's a value-add. You think people would be buying iPhones and giving Apple the massive profit margin they make on them if they didn't have the app store? In addition they do not charge free application developers anything (aside from the registration cost they charge to everybody), they just want to take a cut if you are making money so a more reasonable suggestion for subscription services is this [slashdot.org].
Just think if there where no steam store for windo (Score:2)
Just think if there where no steam store for windows and if you wanted to play on line you needed to buy live gold? Also limited or no modding and no user maps.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's a subscription they want 30% of the subscription ongoing. All that stuff you listed that they provide they also provide to app developers who charge nothing for their applications and also on a one-off per-purchase basis for applications that charge money. What is it that subscription services providers get over those who charge nothing and those who charge a one-off price? Nothing.
Now most subscription services don't charge for the app itself so a way for Apple to get some revenue without just leec
Re: (Score:3)
Around here Apple is a monopoly with a miniscule market-share. Must be Time Lord technology.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
No, Apple didn't "boot" Spotify from the app store. Spotify removed their approved app from the store. There is a world of difference between those two things.
Read that again, in context. Apple didn't give Spotify a choice other than: keep ripping off your customers for 20% of the profit a direct sale nets you, take an 18% loss, or leave.
What specific law prevents this contractual arrangement?
I'm not a lawyer so I can't quite the statute, but it'd be the same one that got Microsoft in shit for bundling IE.
Spotify chose to remove their existing app from the app store instead of removing the feature from their updated app that violated the terms of the app store developers agreement (which is likely the in-app redirection to a web site for payments).
RTFA again. They added the ad (which they'd been allowed previously) and were denied. They removed the violating feature (the ad) and the in-app purchase functionality. They were denied a second time for removing the
Re: (Score:3)
As the subscriber (and therefore the person actually ponying up some cash) I can say that there is nothing Apple is doing with regard to spotify that has 3 dollars a month value to me.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
If it was worth it to the app creator, don't you think they'd pay up instead of getting lawyers involved?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix isn't competing against an Apple-owned subscription video service. If that changes, you can bet their lawsuit will follow within days.
Re: (Score:2)
netflix has been paying up for the last few years and growing subscribers
So why hasn't Apple banned Netflix from the App store? I don't pay my subscription through Apple. I have the app on my iPad, but I never even use it.
Re: (Score:2)
So Netflix gets more subscribers but Apple continues to make money far our of proportion relative to its actual cost.
Cost is secondary, at best, with value based pricing [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that they do not feel it adds value.
When you're having trouble making ends meet, you cut things that don't add value, you don't cut the things that make you money.
Re: (Score:2)
the app creator isn't paying the money.
Re: (Score:2)
Well... not having to give your payment information to Spotify is one. Apple doesn't share ANY purchaser information other than an ID that really can't be tied to anyone. So not having to worry about another site having your personal information might be worth it. I don't know if signing up for Spotify requires giving them you
Re: (Score:2)
Well... not having to give your payment information to Spotify is one. Apple doesn't share ANY purchaser information other than an ID that really can't be tied to anyone. So not having to worry about another site having your personal information might be worth it. I don't know if signing up for Spotify requires giving them your personal information, or if you can just pay $13/year and be done with it (since a lot of personal information is just so they can bill you).
I signed up for Spotify using my Facebook account (which was a mistake, in retrospect). When I decided to upgrade to the pay version, I used Spotify gift cards. So they don't really have that information from me (except what Facebook lets them have, which is all fake anyway).
Re: (Score:2)
LOL yeah. For CONSUMERS, different value (Score:5, Insightful)
> hundreds of millions ... with one click ... default to auto-renew?
> Ask me how I know you don't understand business or money at all.
LOL, absolutely. Apple brings a LOT of value, for app developers. I wrote some software that was way better than anything else in its $100+ million industry. And made almost nothing from it because I didn't get it in front of customers who were ready to pay. What Apple provides, an app store full of people who readily pay for apps, is hugely valuable.
For CONSUMERS, Apple provides payment convenience, which is worth a buck or two, and provides a good app store where they can easily find things like Spotify.
Re: (Score:3)
I would beg to differ, as you cannot find Spotify on their store right now.
Until Apple had a competing product they were not in the habit of removing streaming apps from their store. Now that they are competing they are adding onerous conditions to their competitors.
yes (Score:2)
competition is good. apple is not obligated to provide their platform to anyone. they don't owe spotify anything.
Re: (Score:2)
" I wrote some software that was way better than anything else in its $100+ million industry. And made almost nothing from it because I didn't get it in front of customers who were ready to pay."
What would that be? I bet it's a piece of software I've never heard of because YOU FUCKING FAILED AT PROPER MARKETING.
You expected just the goddamned store presence to carry your ass alone? You make me laugh!
Ya think?! English, do you speak it? (Score:2)
> > because I didn't get it in front of customers who were ready to pay."
> I bet it's a piece of software I've never heard of because YOU FUCKING FAILED AT PROPER MARKETING.
Ya think? That's pretty much what "didn't get it in front of customers who were ready to pay" means, asshole.
Re: (Score:2)
You're willing to pay an extra $3 per month because you don't have to enter your billing information when you sign up (once)? That's really worth $3 per month to you? Because it's you that is paying that extra charge, not Spotify. Apple is charging you $3 per month to use the same app through your phone that you would use on a computer or whatever else. And you're suggesting that's a good value to you? Is it really that difficult to enter your billing information, or is that just a hassle that you're w
Re: (Score:2)
That price is coming from Spotify who is not will t deduct for credit card fees or take into account fraud costs that Apple is now handling.
Apple charges a 30% fee to cover a lot most of the business costs of selling on the Internet and a company does not want them to and does want the customers they bring then it is simple matter of not producing an app for ipods.
Re: (Score:2)
Where is Apple charging me an extra $3 per month?
If you go to Spotify's site and sign up, they charge you $9.99. If you sign up through the iOS app, they charge you $12.99, and they owe Apple 30%, so Apple gets that extra $3. That's the Apple tax. Spotify doesn't pay it, they still get their $9.99 (a little less, 30% of 12.99 is 3.87 or so), you pay it. You pay Apple $3 extra every month for your $10 Spotify membership.
Re: (Score:2)
That price is coming from Spotify who is not will t deduct for credit card fees or take into account fraud costs that Apple is now handling.
If 30% was the standard loss Spotify was taking on their web-based and Android-based subscriptions, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to give Apple a 30% cut of their $9.99 subscription. I can assure you no legitimate business loses 30% to fraud, chargebacks, and processing fees, which means Spotify's costs for these things are much loser than 30%; in order to remain profitable on Apple's platform, they must charge more.
Disclosure (e.g. how I know these costs firsthand): One of my clients is facing the s
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously failed the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act part of business.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. What hundreds of millions of other users do doesn't interest me. They add no value to me as the user and somehow charge $3 more.
Re: (Score:2)
He has a point though. Apple is not a monopoly in the smartphone space, they don't even have a majority of the marketshare.
If you don't feel that Apple's extra $3/month fee to have Spotify on an iPhone is worth it, and you don't feel that a company that operates this way should be rewarded, you can get yourself an Android phone instead. And apparently, you have!
Why should we be worried about people who willingly buy massively overpriced phones, from a vendor with a long history of this kind of behavior, a
Re: (Score:2)
And if we really want to get into it. Apple has
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need a monopoly to be convicted of anti-trust violations.
How do you people forget this simple fucking fact? It's as if you truly didn't pay full attention to United States vs MicroSoft.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft was a monopoly at the time: they had well over 90% (IIRC, probably more actually) of the desktop market. That isn't comparable to Apple, which has less than 50% of the smartphone market in the US.
The lesson from the MS trial was that you don't have to have literally 100% of the market to be a monopolist and subject to anti-trust law. 95% is good enough.
Trying to compare that to the current situation with iPhones seems rather ridiculous. What we have now is basically a duopoly, with Apple iOS an
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
https://support.apple.com/en-g... [apple.com]
Hope this helps.
Re: (Score:2)
https://support.apple.com/en-g... [apple.com]
Hope this helps.
Nope.
WTF, Really? That's NOT creating an ID without a CC. At all. They're still collecting your CC information. And keeping it,
Re: (Score:2)
I guess they changed it at some point then. I have had an Apple ID for however long and there's no payment info attached. I've used the account to acquire free apps from itunes. I can't really prove it any more as I no longer own any Apple devices.
Yet again I come along with the anecdotal evidence, but there you go. YMMV n all that.
Re:"Adding no Value" (Score:5, Funny)
Please provide an example of how decreased purchasing friction benefits consumers.
Condoms?
Re: (Score:2)
A web page for a music-playing app isn't going to work very well. I agree that having an app for every little thing is really annoying, but music players are one place where they're really warranted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Walled garden (Score:5, Informative)
This whole thing is a bit weird on both sides.
1) When Apple added in-app payments (IAP) to the App Store, they came with a set of draconian rules (e.g. devs must use Apple's IAP system and pay Apple their 30% cut; devs can't advertise other ways to pay outside the store, etc.). No one liked it, but devs adjusted by doing things like raising the price to cover Apple's 30% cut from people who paid via IAP which is what Spotify did.
2) This arrangement continues for several years.
3) Spotify decides it no longer likes playing by the rules they've been following for years, so they submit an update that includes ads for an off-store way of paying for a subscription at a lower price.
4) Apple rejects the update since it's in violation of the rules.
5) Spotify decides to take its ball and leave, so they not only pull the advertising, they also pull the ability for iOS users to pay at all from the app.
6) Apple apparently decides it wants to punish Spotify, so they reject that update, even though there's so far no indication of any form of rules breaking.
All of which is to say, this seems childish on both sides. Apple's rules are soon-to-be relaxed a bit (e.g. 15% cut for subscriptions that last longer than a year), but they're still draconian, and Spotify seems to be breaking the rules intentionally, then acting outraged in as loud a way as possible simply for the purpose of drumming up some PR.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with most of what you say, except instead of categorizing Spotify as being childish and looking for PR, I'd call it they're using their position to point out Apple's greedyness and trying to get changes to happen. When Taylor Swift did the same thing with Apple Music and the free trial crap, everyone was falling all over themselves to congratulate her on using her status for good. How is this any different?
Re: (Score:2)
How is this any different?
A) Taylor Swift refused to even begin putting her content on Apple Music until the problem was dealt with. Spotify, on the other hand, was happy to play along for several years, until they decided they weren't. If it was a raw deal, why have they been putting up with it for years? And why complain when the deal is getting better for them (Apple's cut is dropping from 30% to 15%) unless they want publicity?
B) Taylor Swift would have been getting $0 during the trial period for new Apple Music users. Spotify h
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I'm aware I didn't account for Spotify's payment processing cost in my math. Let's assume they're paying something average like
Re: (Score:3)
Apple was being unfair to artists, not its customers. Spotify customers who are paying through the app itself are the ones affected by the changes in Spotify's app, and Spotify has the gall to paint the situation as though these rules have suddenly changed.
I am no fan of Spotify -- as with all streaming services, they shortchange musicians. However, the fact is that they're operating in a space where margins are exceptionally tight (and all their competitors are shortchanging musicians, too) -- Apple's cut is humungous in relation to most of the other costs in the system, and it takes a dubious business model and makes it unworkable.
And what does Apple bring to the table? People keep saying it brings the customers, but that's a two-way street -- there are pl
Re: (Score:2)
If you have the law on your side, pound on the law.
If you have the facts on your side, pound on the facts.
If you have neither the law or the facts on your side, pound on the table.
Re: (Score:2)
Citation? I don't recall ever hearing of Apple having a Most Favored Nation (MFN) clause in their contracts with App Store developers, even early on. The biggest restriction at launch that they later backed off on was that IAP were only available for paid apps [ihs.com], not free ones, presumably to maintain a strong delineation between for-pay and free apps. It wasn't until later in the life of iPhone OS 3 (back before it was called iOS even) that they opened it up to free apps as well.
Apple has done MFN clauses in
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, with Apple's attitude, they treat their customers like fertilizer...
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck Apple
Re: (Score:2)
You're already at 5 pts, so AMEN brother.
Everyone protects theiro own interests (Score:5, Informative)
I give no fucks. (Score:3)
If the people are too stupid to realize that they are being treated like children or if they are ok with it then they should be cut off the good apps that us responsible people can handle.
If Apple wants to be a shit and separate their customers from the rest of the world, then we should just abandon them to their choices.
This is why android (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You don't see studios taking back content from blockbuster
After the fire sale when they went out of business, there was nothing left to take back.
Re: (Score:2)
Correction, there are apps that suck for these reasons. There are also apps for just about every purpose that are as good or better than anything available on IOS. There are only a few very oddball cases where someone releases an app on IOS and doesn't also release it on Android because there are no shortage of great frameworks that you can develop wit
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, when I released an app on both platforms I had my Android app ready long before the iOS app. With Android I paid a one time fee and the ability to create a new app for debug and migrate it to release was simple. With iOS I had a higher once a year fee (so that app is no longer supported on iOS) and had to rent a mac computer so I could build, test and deploy my app. From now on I will be releasing Android apps, then migrating to iOS only if it is worthwhile.
Re: (Score:2)
That's presuming all companies are Apple when in-fact Google gives away Android including source code. They also built-in mechanisms for third-party stores allowing any apps to be installed. Then, they further improved quality-control in these by running installs through an optional blacklist of dangerous apps.
Re: (Score:3)
Google, Apple and MS all built huge empires and they have every right to occasionally strong arm competitors.
No, they don't. That's why we have antitrust laws and the like.
Re: (Score:3)
Specifically I don't really understand what the dispute is actually about or what has changed.
What's changed is that companies are finally sick of apple taking a 33% cut for adding precisely zero value on top of another company's effort. This is resulting in a very popular company attempting to pull out of the market altogether.
Enjoy Spotify while you can. Unless they come to an agreement you'll very soon understand what is changing for you.
And this is a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
.
It's the reason (well, that and buggy software, but mainly that) why I dumped the AppleTV, gen4, that I recently purchased.
Who is surprised? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You think Apple and Spotify are bad, wait till you learn about the RIAA and the labels...
Re: (Score:2)
This is why anti-trust laws exist (Score:3)
When a single company controls an entire marketplace (in this case, the marketplace of iDevice users), abuse is sure to follow.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it is. But if you've ever known an Apple fanboy, you know that moving to Android would be like moving to a different country for them. To them, nothing exists outside of the Apple universe.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it is.
Last time I checked, Apple didn't control the Android market.
To them, nothing exists outside of the Apple universe.
There are people like that on either side.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and why should I care? It's not my concern if a bunch of rich, spoiled brats get screwed for $3/month.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple customers aren't running Android, and they don't have the option to do so until the next upgrade at least.
If I wanted an Android phone, I would get an Android phone. I don't see Apple giving up the vertical stack that they built to allow a competitor OS to run on it.
Apple being excessive (Score:2)
It sounds like Apple wants their 30% cut even though Spotify (and other apps) are multiplatform. And, in fact, users choose those apps/services because of their availability on multiple platforms.
To be fair, I think Apple should prorate its App Store cut based on the total platform footprint of the service.
E.g., if Spotify is on 4 platforms (iOS, MacOS, Windows, and Android), then Spotify pays 1/4 of the standard rate on subscriptions.
If this applied only to recurring subscription costs, it would have no ef
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, I think Apple should prorate its App Store cut based on the total platform footprint of the service.
E.g., if Spotify is on 4 platforms (iOS, MacOS, Windows, and Android), then Spotify pays 1/4 of the standard rate on subscriptions.
I completely disagree.
Instead, I think Apple should multiply their rates based on the number of platforms an app is available on. e.g., if Spotify is on 4 platforms, and costs $10/month on the other platforms, Apple should charge iPhone users enough that it makes the
Re: (Score:2)
Nice straw man. Apple could just as easily mandate one-click cancellation of subscriptions purchased through third-party billing systems as a condition for putting an app in the App Store. Nothing about such requirements requires using Apple's massively overpriced payment system.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would anyone willingly subscribe to SiriusXM?
I got a free trial subscription with my car, and tried it out, briefly. The sound quality was so horrible (even 32kbps MP3 sounds better) I laughed when they called me up trying to get me to renew after the trial period.
Apple ban's emulator with open rom as well. (Score:2)
Apple ban's emulator with open rom as well. On there store apps like that need to be self contained and apple does not even let apps use a real file system / share files with other apps.
Which one to support? (Score:2)
I am not sure which one of those to support.
I like that Spotify takes the fight over Apples draconian rules on their store.
However, I also feel like Spotify had this coming. They have for years mistreated the Android users. For years Android was a second class platform. Spotify should reap what they have sown. They shouldn't have invested so heavily in the iPhone users as they did. So in some respect I think this serves them right.
Look how long it took them to support Chromecast. Apple TV however, that was
Re:Fuck Spotify (Score:5, Funny)
There service
Where?
Re: (Score:2)
Where?
Exactly!
Re: (Score:2)
Who is on first.
I don't know.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Spotify (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Nintendo's console is only designed for games. Therefore, they are well within their rights to refuse a competitor's cartridge from working. The iPhone OTOH is a mobile, general purpose computer and Apple has no right to dictate whether some app/service can exist or not regardless if it competes with Apple. This sounds a lot life MS Office vs WordPerfect or Excel vs 1-2-3 and all the illegal maneuvers MS pulled against its competitors.
Re: (Score:2)
Why should Apple be forced to break up? They're not a monopoly, and not even close. If you don't like their service, then don't buy an iPhone. Most smartphone buyers get Android phones of some kind; you're free to join them (as I have).
I don't like Apple either. My solution was simple though: I simply opted to not spend $800 on a phone from them, and instead got myself a nice used Samsung Galaxy for $100-something. If I get tired of that, I can go get a phone from Sony, or Motorola, or LG, etc. If I g
Re: (Score:3)
At some point, consumers need to take responsibility for their own choices. In the case of a true monopoly, it's true that consumers have little other choice, and even in the case of Windows you can make the claim that the presence of so much existing software on the platform, and the overwhelming marketshare, qualifies for similar treatment.
However, iPhone isn't even the market leader, not even close. Android is, by far. I really don't see why this warrants any attention other than "look! another way Ap
Re: (Score:2)
Spotify has sufficiently deep pockets.
Spotify has left the app store.
Grab some popcorn, we're about to see this go to court.
Re:Easy Fix (Score:4, Informative)
Seems like a simple fix,
From TFA:
Spotify stopped advertising the promotion. But it also turned off its App Store billing option, which has led to the current dispute.
Seems they did that, actually.
they could possibly include a "button" that directs you to their website to "manage your account" if they wanted to and Apple still wouldn't get shit.
That's specifically forbidden by Apple, actually, for the very reason you mention: Apple [...] wouldn't get shit.