Apple, Spotify Discuss Siri Truce, as Antitrust Battle Looms

Apple and Spotify are in talks about potentially enabling Siri to play songs, albums, and playlists from the leading subscription music service. The Verge: A new report from The Information confirms that Spotify would be taking advantage of new capabilities that Apple is introducing in iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, which allow other apps to be on equal footing with Apple Music when making music requests through the company's Siri voice assistant. If Spotify takes advantage of the new tools, you'll be able to play music without having to open the app on your iPhone or iPad. The integration could be a sign of progress between two companies that have butted heads to a more heated degree than ever before over the last year. In March, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the EU that accused Apple of disadvantaging third-party services that compete with its own apps. Among other gripes (such as Apple's subscription tax), Spotify pointed to hands-free Siri compatibility as one convenient feature that Apple was reserving for its own Apple Music service. Further reading: Apple Says Spotify Wants 'the Benefits of a Free App Without Being Free'; and Apple Cites Irrelevant Spotify Subscription Stats In New Antitrust Defense.

Illegal?

[exomondo]

It's a pretty clear cut case of anti-competitive behaviour and has been for a long time. Bundling a browser (and other applications) that you can't replace, private APIs that only Apple apps have access to, etc is the exact behaviour Microsoft was doing in the 90s. The question is whether it's actually illegal, Microsoft's dominant position in the PC market answered that question and really given Apple's power in the smartphone market (it's not purely about % market share) I would say making this go away before they end up with a court ruling is very much in their interest.

Re:

[sd4f]

What has been clear is give any company a chance to dominate a platform, then they'll engage in antitrust behaviour. The thing is, google or apple may not have market dominance, but they do have dominance among their users, making it harder and harder for them to change.

Antitrust

[tuppe666]

Apple should have been properly delt with after there anticompetitive behaviour with ebooks. The market never recovered.

They need to be stopped.

Re:

[sit1963nz]

"The Market" was Amazon.
Amazon was selling ebooks at a loss so it could sell more kindles and get rid of the competition.

The ONLY winner was Amazon.

Antitrust

[tuppe666]

The only winner was Apples cartel. The loser was us the consumer.

Why would it not do that?

[HalAtWork]

I thought assistant software was supposed to do what you ask? It's limited by brand?

Re: Why would it not do that?

[brunes69]

Apparently Sriri is?

Neither Alexa not Google Assistant are limited like this, so it's totally news to me.

Bananas why anyone sticks with Apple.

Re:

[exomondo]

It's weird, the tagline for why Siri is so terrible was that Apple doesn't do analytics on it and they even put up the what happens on your iphone stays on your iphone [9to5mac.com] billboards but it's actually not the case at all and they got caught not only doing the opposite of what the billboard says but handing that to 3rd party contractors from which it subsequently leaked. Of course Google and Amazon did the same thing but they weren't putting up billboards claiming to be privacy-focussed and it's confusing as to

Re:

[Cmdln Daco]

Google and Amazon's assistants are not restricted to a narrow higher-paying segment of the market. The broader market coverage means more people plugging into the AI.

Apple has insisted on only serving a small higher-paying segment of the market since forever. They're incapable of selling to a broad market.