my god, so cringy, what a bunch of soyboys really.
Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
341–350 of 865 posts
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#342I 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…
Is Apple unfairly leveraging the app store the same way Microsoft leveraged IE? I don't even see this being an anti-competitive concern
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#343As a user, I much prefer the Android model. For example I can buy and browse Kindle or Audible books directly in the app. I don't use Spotify but I imagine it's a similar experience.
Apple policies do not really benefit anyone. Kindle iOS users will simply open Safari to buy their books, making their experience worse.
Either Apple should really remain objective and not have horses in the App Store race, or follow the same rules on its own apps that they impose on others, or change the rules to benefit everyone (including the users).
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#344I 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…
> Having said this, Apple can do as they please. They control the hardware, the OS, the App Store, and the user accounts.
I disagree. Apple created the App Store and invited 3rd parties to host their apps there, so they should have to play fair for whatever the legal system deems is a good definition of fair.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#345Earlier 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%.
Apple does pay artists a much larger cut than Spotify. At e.g. 5000 streams Apple pays the artist ca 37 USD vs the 22 USD that Spotify pays out.
$22*1.30 = $35.1
Interesting, so Spotify could pay nearly the same simply by paying the 30% to artists instead of Apple.
And of course, those 37 might already be partly paid by Spotify anyway.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#346I really hope Apple dies and burns. They have good PR but thats it. They lie and deceit developers just like Google. Bait and Switch. There should be government regulation of Apple, Facebook and Google. These corps are just too big and control our democracy. Apple is starving innovation by deliberately not supporting many thing on the Safari iOS browser and prevents competition illegally by restricting 3rd party brow…
What does iOS Safari not support? It uses WebKit, so more or less full technical/js support, it has ad blockers, tracking prevention, a built in password manager that uses the iOS keychain... not sure what else I’d really want for web browsing.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#347This exemplifies some of the reasons proprietary app store lock-in is bad for consumers. Progressive Web Apps -- web apps that are installable and available offline without any app store -- are a viable alternative, and ultimately a threat to Apple's app store racket. It's likely why iOS Safari continues to drag it's feet on PWA support.
> Progressive Web Apps [are] ultimately a threat to Apple's app store racket
Honestly, no, they're not. Even the Gold Standard of PWAs - the Twitter Lite app that Google (the patron saint of PWAs) helped them build - provides an inferior experience compared to native apps.
People bring this up often - Apple refuses to improve Safari to bolster their App Store - which completely ignores all the valuable improvements Safari has made to give web apps more native-like features, like backdrop-blur for blurred backgrounds and CSS Snap points for native JS-less carousels. Chrome doesn't support either of these.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think Spotify complains about customer acquisition costs. They complain about having to give away 30% of their revenue forever. That's not the case on the PC, or anywhere else.
As I said: These are the costs of the channel. You don't need to use the channel.
You do, that's the crux of the matter. Apple can happily claim that 30% is the overhead cost of providing the subscriptions service, that's within their right. Looking past how ridiculously high 30% is the fact that they are so hostile to apps having users pay via means that aren't the app store is the issue. For example Spotify aren't allowed to even tell people in the iOS app that they can subscribe with a credit card on the web without facing rejection.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#349Someone just posted this, about Spotify trying to lock in users: https://freeyourmusic.com/blog/spotify-trying-to-lockin-user...
Spotify isn't really complaining about "unfairness". Business complaining are really just them trying to mobilize customer outrage to force a better deal for them. Apple created an ecosystem, and is allowed to charge what they want for it. Other vendors charge markups: retail, a business with notoriously low profit margins, charges about 15% markup. This is because price elasticity of groceries is exceedingly high: customers have extensive choice and it's not an immediate/emergency good. Restaurants charge about 60%. Clothing can be 300%, high fashion more. But nobody complains about that.
We need to stop thinking of the app store as a "tax" and more as a retail outlet, because it is just a digital retailer. The 30% effectively amounts to a markup.
> [Apple] frequently decides to interpret (and re-interpret) them [App Store rules]
This is a hard line for Apple to walk. Other platforms have issues with this too, and can't always come to one perfect interpretation. See some of the issues with Youtube policing pedophilia recently and having to take some drastic (and very unpopular) steps. What was okay previously isn't now.
On Apple's payment system: they run a walled garden. Though there are disadvantages to this, there are also advantages to it. The case could be made that this has massive security benefits (iOS malware, anyone?) and can also keep users from having their payment details tricked out of them by forcing them through one channel. Think it wouldn't happen? An app tried to trick iPhone users into scanning their fingerprint to authorize a large Apple Pay charge to the scammer. It could be worse without the security.
> Siri still won’t talk to us today
Need some more technical detail here, but why is the onus on Apple to do the work to integrate with your platform the way you want to do it? Apple does provide SiriKit: https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/
> [they] won’t work with us to develop an app for it [the Apple Watch]
Again, why should Apple have to work with you? What you're effectively looking for is a support contract. Pandora managed it.
> Apple Music doesn’t have to pay the 30% IAP charge
Yes, it's called vertical integration and there are huge benefits to it. It's been one of Apple's core business practices from day one. They control huge parts of their supply chain, even developing their own phone chips (which may well end up as desktop-grade CPUs and could provide a huge consumer benefit in terms of microarchitectural advancement). This isn't unfair. Undercutting is not unfair.
App store tightening is of course designed to protect Apple's revenue stream. They've seen other developers stop using IAP, and want to ensure the App Store remains dominant. Not unfair. It's Apple's right to say what they sell and don't sell on their store.
> "level playing field"
See the article linked at the top of this reply. Spotify is trying to keep users in its platform by preventing playlist transfer (and even prohibiting apps that do it for them, so not an issue of just not developing the functionality). That's at least as anti-consumer. Business do this sort of stuff all the time, and Spotify is more committed to its revenue than to "fairness".
Spotify is just salty because they didn't get the deal they wanted and because Apple is trying to push users toward its products over Spotifys. Not really nice of Apple, but not "unfair".
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#350Let's be fair then: Phones now have the same level of processing power as portable computers. We shouldn't be obligated to only run applications that are siphoned thru a third party "trusted clearinghouse", be it the smartphone or the operating system vendor. If I want more safety or I am not a Power User, I can flick a switch on the device to allow that binding behavior to happen. Heck, they are giving me the 'free…
> Phones now have the same level of processing power as portable computers. We shouldn't be obligated to only run applications that are siphoned thru a third party "trusted clearinghouse", be it the smartphone or the operating system vendor. I pay a lot of money for iPad Pros and Google Pixelbooks for precisely this functionality. When the user can run anything they want, the result is the unsafe landscape of malware…
As OP mentioned, that could be enabled with a toggle. An example of this all being for the benefit of walled gardens, take rooting. Obviously if a user is going through the trouble to attain true ownership of their phone and os, they are doing so because they want to be in control. Phone carriers openly fight this at every turn because they want us to be forced to use their BS apps, known as bloatware, and prevent users from no longer seeing ads. This is all about money. Microsoft is trying hard to do the same on desktop now with all their in-os ads. Protecting users is the single most bullshit line ever and they all use it.