Knowing how crap Spotify app is (an Electron monstrocity on the desktop) that's for the best.
Spotify is not an Electron app, it uses CEF.
Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
241–250 of 865 posts
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
A 30% cut is something that Spotify needs to pay to Apple for every user that subscribes to Spotify through Apple devices. This cost doesn't doesn't exist for PC users, for example. They probably could live with it but I can understand why it feels like an artificial cost that Apple came up with. It would be an understandable cost if they were selling the Spotify App through the App Store and using the actual store i…
> A 30% cut is something that Spotify needs to pay to Apple for every user that subscribes to Spotify through Apple devices. Can you even subscribe through the app? Spotify could simply yell you so go to your web browser to subscribe. That’s what Amazon does for its video etc and it doesn’t seem to cause them any problems. I subscribed to Spotify via their web site and it works fine on my phone. I’m sure they pay not…
In the article, it mentions several times that Apple has rejected apps for linking to the web page to upgrade, or for even mentioning it is possible to upgrade (when IAP is not enabled).
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Imagine if Spotify offered a lower rate for Android users... Wouldn't that send a very clear message to Apple? I believe this is also against Apple's Terms of Service. IIRC, they have a "most favored nation" clause which prohibits you from offering a lower price on a competing platform.
I was just looking for this in the App Store review guidelines and I couldn't find it. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
Another piece of evidence: on the site, on June 2014, they mention raising the price to 13 Euro to make up for the 30% charge. I don't think they raised the price for web subscriptions at that time.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, that's not entirely true, Apple can't exactly do what it wants. As other comments point out regarding Microsoft, Microsoft were forced to allow IE to be debundled and other competing browsers installed, because having a monopoly on a platform and using that platform to enforce anti-competitive practices is illegal under anti-trust law. So given Apple's marketshare (not a monopoly per se though pretty substantia…
Apple doesn't have a monopoly, it's less than 30% of the European phone market
They have a monopoly over their own app store. It's not like Spotify can just choose to distribute their iOS app directly or through a 3rd party app store
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#245I agree that Spotify is taking the right stance. In their position, working on whatever team is responsible for fighting Apple, I would also do anything in my power to fight. Having said this, Apple can do as they please. They control the hardware, the OS, the App Store, and the user accounts. The same was true of Twitter who effectively squeezed access to their API until one or two desktop clients remained. The only…
Well, that's not entirely true, Apple can't exactly do what it wants. As other comments point out regarding Microsoft, Microsoft were forced to allow IE to be debundled and other competing browsers installed, because having a monopoly on a platform and using that platform to enforce anti-competitive practices is illegal under anti-trust law. So given Apple's marketshare (not a monopoly per se though pretty substantia…
You've misremembered the Microsoft ruling. It wasn't about Microsoft having control over computers running Windows - that alone does not a monopoly make. What made Microsoft a monopoly was that over 95% (can't remember the exact number) of all computers were running Windows.
Apple's marketshare is nowhere close to that.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#246They have some valid complaints, but "if we use Apple's payment infrastructure, we have to pay them a cut for doing so" isn't one of them. The thing I find to be anticompetitive is that Spotify cannot provide a web link to their own payment processing web page within their app. Apple has long allowed content providers to opt out of using Apple's own payment system (and paying Apple a cut), but without being able to p…
> They have some valid complaints, but "if we use Apple's payment infrastructure, we have to pay them a cut for doing so" isn't one of them. But Spotify doesn't want to use Apple's infrastructure and is compelled to do so regardless. Spotify is saying that if using Apple payment infrastructure was free, then not allowing other options would not be a problem, but since it's not free, not allowing anything else is a pr…
They are not compelled to use Apple as their payment processor.
They are absolutely free to handle billing their customers on their own website and to turn off the ability to pay through their iOS app altogether.
This is, in fact, exactly what Netflix has chosen to do with new users.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/31/netflix-stops-paying-the-a...
Nothing is stopping Spotify from doing the same thing with new and/or existing users.
What they are not free to do is provide a link to their billing web page within their app.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#247I agree that Spotify is taking the right stance. In their position, working on whatever team is responsible for fighting Apple, I would also do anything in my power to fight. Having said this, Apple can do as they please. They control the hardware, the OS, the App Store, and the user accounts. The same was true of Twitter who effectively squeezed access to their API until one or two desktop clients remained. The only…
> Apple can do as they please
I hope they continue to do so, in so much as I would like Apple to experience some backlash for having inconsistent stances when it comes to the app ecosystem and their rules.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? An app store?…
Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. I'd say if you're selling $1200 computer devices, one principle of that is ownership and that you get to run what you want, not what Apple wants. We seem to have come a long way on this site f…
>Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else.
At the same time though, Microsoft wasn't preventing other developers from using those hidden APIs (if they could find them) nor preventing them from publishing their own competing apps. Sure, Microsoft's behaviour at the time was anti-competitive and sometimes even predatory, but they were never so on Windows to the extent that Apple is today on iOS.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
See https://marco.org/2017/09/24/what-watch-podcast-apps-need .
Also see https://marco.org/2018/09/17/overcast5 > That’s why I nearly jumped for joy during the watchOS 5 announcement in June, when Apple unveiled most of my list of watchOS changes needed to make good podcast apps. In my understanding, an Apple Watch Spotify app would surely be technically feasible as of watchOS 5 (but I might be in the wrong here, I haven't tried myself more than read the available API docs).
Seems like there's still the issue of networking, and I guess if the accusations about the Spotify app rejections are true then I wouldn't be surprised if a Watch app that allows offline playback would get rejected.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#250This all seems well and good.
However, I'd like to point out something that doesn't sit well with me.
Spotify uses this same kind of extraction mechanism on the artists that use its platform.
The complaint loop is complete. We have artists complaining about artist 'hosting' companies complaining about application hosting companies.
I believe the solution lies in different, non-zero sum economics, but haven't been able to think of anything for music. I do, however, have some pretty cool ideas for longer form text and video content.