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

601–610 of 865 posts

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#601

Post by writepub »

badatshipping wrote: post #594

Apple owns their platform. It cost a fortune to develop, and it's theirs. Imagine it's the 1800s and you wanted to develop technology to let anyone listen to music anytime. You'd have to invent the computer, an operating system, and the internet (some means of distribution), then invent Spotify. (Or maybe not all those things in their entirety, but just enough to support the Spotify's functionality.) Since it's 2019,…

Maybe Intel should only allow Apple to run Intel approved apps on Intel Mac's, because it's Intel's CPU running the show? And what about the modem chip vendors? Shouldn't Qualcomm put a firewall in firmware and filter all traffic on the iPhone that it hasn't approved? What about the ISP carrying those packets? Shouldn't they lay claim to packet ownership?

This platform ownership piffle Apple has sold for eons is pure horse shit, and the EU regulators will rule as such. Simply put, a fridge manufacturer cannot control what items get stored and cooled in the fridge, after the customer has paid in full for both the fridge and the item. And the fridge manufacturer certainly cannot restrict items only sold though it's own stores

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#602

Post by baby »

nevir wrote: post #238

Apple did the same thing to Kindle for iPhone back when it launched. We submitted the original version to Apple with a fully functioning store built into it—and were then stuck in submission limbo. Two weeks later, Apple announces their intent to build in-app purchasing. The kicker: Apple wanted a 30% cut of every book sold on the store …and at the same time, had negotiated with book publishers that the publishers MU…

I wasted so much time trying to figure out how to get books in the iOS kindle app. When I finally figured out that I had to use my laptop, I was still confused at so why the iOS app was not saying anything about anything.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#603

Post by [deleted] »

writepub wrote: post #601
badatshipping wrote: post #594

Apple owns their platform. It cost a fortune to develop, and it's theirs. Imagine it's the 1800s and you wanted to develop technology to let anyone listen to music anytime. You'd have to invent the computer, an operating system, and the internet (some means of distribution), then invent Spotify. (Or maybe not all those things in their entirety, but just enough to support the Spotify's functionality.) Since it's 2019,…

Maybe Intel should only allow Apple to run Intel approved apps on Intel Mac's, because it's Intel's CPU running the show? And what about the modem chip vendors? Shouldn't Qualcomm put a firewall in firmware and filter all traffic on the iPhone that it hasn't approved? What about the ISP carrying those packets? Shouldn't they lay claim to packet ownership? This platform ownership piffle Apple has sold for eons is pure…

[deleted]

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#604

Post by smileybarry »

AimForTheBushes wrote: post #362
gumby wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a CRUD app would work fine. Isn’t their web player a CRUD app?

You can't use spotify in browser, so I don't think a PWA would work in this scenario.

But you can use Spotify in a web browser. They have a web player at open.spotify.com .

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#606

Post by gnicholas »

nevir wrote: post #238

Apple did the same thing to Kindle for iPhone back when it launched. We submitted the original version to Apple with a fully functioning store built into it—and were then stuck in submission limbo. Two weeks later, Apple announces their intent to build in-app purchasing. The kicker: Apple wanted a 30% cut of every book sold on the store …and at the same time, had negotiated with book publishers that the publishers MU…

Even crazier, Apple in some cases forces apps that use webviews to block out links to the Kindle Store that would normally appear. My iOS app [1] has speed reading and accessibility features that we overlay on websites, including the Kindle Cloud Reader.

Apple wouldn't approve our app until we blocked the Kindle Store button from loading on the Kindle Cloud Reader website. It never occurred to me that Apple would try to exercise control over how third-party websites are rendered inside webviews, but it turns out they do.

1: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beeline-reader/id938026867?m...

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#607

Post by jmull »

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…

I don't know about the others, but Spotify is BSing about being blocked on the Apple Watch.

Until WatchOS 5 the APIs to do something like Spotify didn't really exist. There were workarounds, like by abusing the workout API, but unsurprisingly these has significant drawbacks, were unstable and Apple cracked down when they found API abuses.

Apple "blocked" Spotify only in that it hadn't (yet) released APIs that supported their use cases.

It makes me wonder how disingenuous their other claims are.

I do think services should have more options than Apple allows for accepting payment.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#608

Post by jdminhbg »

lwhi wrote: post #358
bdcravens wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Apple unfairly leveraging the app store the same way Microsoft leveraged IE? I don't even see this being an anti-competitive concern

> Is Apple unfairly leveraging the app store (...) .. yes, for many of the reasons described in Spotify's microsite. They have a monopoly, and they are unfairly favouring their own products. This should be enough to bring anti-trust concerns to the table.

> They have a monopoly

If you redefine "monopoly" to mean "minority market share," then yes, I suppose they do.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#609

Post by cobookman »

dalore wrote: post #580
gurpreet- wrote: post #126

Personally, as an app developer, I think Spotify is taking the right stance here. I believe that Apple should take some cuts but not as high as 30%. I believe for some categories like microtransaction based apps Apple should take maybe 5%. Plus, I think that if Apple has a competing service, then it should waive the tax altogether. It's only fair. If the only function of the App Store (or Play Store) is to provide ho…

What they need to do is split off the new competing services into a walled corporation (even new entity). And they play fair by the rules, so 30% tax even to them.

With said company owned by apple and paying apple for licensing fees that just so happen to be equivalent to its yearly rev.

That's easy enough to circumvent.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#610

Post by sixstringtheory »

aylmao wrote: post #173
fmo91 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that. However, what worries me about PWAs is discoverability. How can I find a catalog of available PWAs to download? Is there a way?

In theory that's an easy problem: anyone could make an "App Store", especially considering they wouldn't have to host binaries or deliver updates. Something mimicking today's stores would essentially be links you can rate and comment on. Kind of like Reddit, but with a different UI and no direct user submissions.

But crucially, they’d have no way to moderate for bad actors. You can’t just kick a webpage off the net. Things like Reddit style voting can be gamed, just like app store search and reviews are today. Whoever has the most resources wins, not necessarily who has the best product.
Post reply on HN