Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

timetoplayfair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 865 posts

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#253

Post by mediocrejoker »

jdietrich wrote: post #217
ubermonkey wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just as Microsoft were stopped from shipping a browser with their OS, vendors should be prevented from shipping an App Store with their OS. That comparison doesn't really work, because MSFT had an effective desktop monopoly. By contrast, Apple is a minority player in the mobile market. >They should be FORCED to have an open platform, Just because YOU want this doesn't mean the Apple users want it. I'm utterly conten…

>That comparison doesn't really work, because MSFT had an effective desktop monopoly. By contrast, Apple is a minority player in the mobile market. Market share is not the only criteria for determining whether a company has a dominant market position under EU competition law. Apple have a substantial share of the mobile phone market and they have a total monopoly on iOS app distribution. If you want to sell apps to ~…

Why can't developers sell apps in the Android play store?

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#254

Post by ihuman »

jdietrich wrote: post #194
ihuman wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically it does? Apple could be taking a 30% cut all Apple Music subscriptions for hosting the application and processing the payment. Apple then gets the remaining 70%.

Do they actually take a 30% cut? If they're accounting in that manner, then it's likely that Apple Music is running at a substantial loss, which would constitute predatory pricing under EU competition law.

Does it count as a loss if they’re both taking that loss on iOS users?

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#256

Post by harryf »

cujo wrote: post #12
owenwil wrote: post #4

The claims in here are pretty wild, particularly around how Apple has favored its own products: - Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch - It blocked Spotify from building apps for HomePod - It blocked Spotify from building apps for Siri - It blocks Spotify updates on a regular basis - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies I genuinely hope Europe t…

> Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch I'm not sure this is 100% true. From browsing the spotify support forums many moons ago, some guy had built a spotify playing app for the apple watch, but spotify squashed it. Given that some random dev could do this, it doesn't seem like apple prevented anything.

I _believe_ the issue here is some app developers were invited to visit Apple and (perhaps) get access to certain APIs that weren't going to be made available to normal app developers.

- If you're deep into iOS development you know that Apple apps - the ones shipped with the OS - sometimes do things that 3rd party apps aren't able to. For example the Music app gets to be the _default_ app to live in the control panel even if you hardly ever use it and are using Spotify most of the time.

- I believe - for the Apple Watch - some of the 3rd party apps which were already available on the day of the launch were a) invited to preview the Watch ahead of other developers and b) in some cases allowed to use undocumented APIs. Uber may be one example of this - https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/05/uber-removing-apple-gra...

Apple has been inviting 3rd party developers to preview technologies for a while e.g. https://appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/17/apple-invites-dev... so it seems to be standard practice.

As I read this "Time to Play Fair" website, it looks to me like Spotify is complaining they weren't invited to these preview sessions and thereby didn't get to learn about / get permission to use undocumented APIs.

Of course IANAL

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#257

Post by aklemm »

georgespencer wrote: post #44

Can someone help me stop playing the world's smallest violin here? Spotify knowingly built a low margin business living in the pocket of the labels (who force Spotify towards razor thin margins) and Apple/Google (who have, since before Spotify launched, operated app stores for their platforms which are to some extent curated and which are not free market economies). Spotify feels aggrieved that Apple does not allow i…

Bottom line: I can't queue and download Spotify content to my Apple Watch for offline use. Considering Apple has a competitor product, there is no reason for me to believe Apple is playing fair.

Secondarily, the expectation that Spotify buck the labels AND expect to bring the concept of 'all music for one price' is a non-starter, so I don't understand that criticsim.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#258

Post by addicted »

dwighttk wrote: post #147
cujo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch I'm not sure this is 100% true. From browsing the spotify support forums many moons ago, some guy had built a spotify playing app for the apple watch, but spotify squashed it. Given that some random dev could do this, it doesn't seem like apple prevented anything.

Spotify is available (on apple watch) now, for whatever that's worth... Took me about 2 minutes from reading the complaint to playing Spotify (already had an account) on my watch. That includes downloading from the store and then to the watch (which has in the past, with other apps, taken a while)

They state in their timeline that after many years Apple did allow Spotify.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#260

Post by mediocrejoker »

talkingtab wrote: post #237

I don't think this is about Spotify versus Apple - its about Apple versus its customers. I want to be able to choose what music service I want, and I want the price to be competitive. And not just music. You just have to wonder what's up with Apple.

Why not switch to Android?
Post reply on HN