Apple starts an intensified pattern of Spotify app rejections - and threatens to remove us from the App Store. Now that Apple has Apple Music, rejections of the Spotify app start becoming more and more common, and they even go as far as threatening to remove us from the App Store. This is not the first time Spotify has called upon the anvil of regulation against Apple. In June, the European Commission commenced investigations against the company, following complaints from Spotify about Apple's in-app payment policies, which it alleged are designed to give an unfair advantage to its own products, like Apple Music.
We believe that technology achieves its true potential when we infuse it with human creativity and ingenuity. From our earliest days, weâve built our devices, software and services to help artists, musicians, creators and visionaries do what they do best.
Sixteen years ago, we launched the iTunes Store with the idea that there should be a trusted place where users discover and purchase great music and every creator is treated fairly. The result revolutionized the music industry, and our love of music and the people who make it are deeply engrained in Apple.
Eleven years ago, the App Store brought that same passion for creativity to mobile apps. In the decade since, the App Store has helped create many millions of jobs, generated more than $120 billion for developers and created new industries through businesses started and grown entirely in the App Store ecosystem.
At its core, the App Store is a safe, secure platform where users can have faith in the apps they discover and the transactions they make. And developers, from first-time engineers to larger companies, can rest assured that everyone is playing by the same set of rules.
Thatâs how it should be. We want more app businesses to thrive â including the ones that compete with some aspect of our business, because they drive us to be better.
What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem â including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Storeâs customers â without making any contributions to that marketplace. At the same time, they distribute the music you love while making ever-smaller contributions to the artists, musicians and songwriters who create it â even going so far as to take these creators to court.
Spotify has every right to determine their own business model, but we feel an obligation to respond when Spotify wraps its financial motivations in misleading rhetoric about who we are, what weâve built and what we do to support independent developers, musicians, songwriters and creators of all stripes.
Spotify claims weâre blocking their access to products and updates to their app.
Letâs clear this one up right away. Weâve approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on Spotifyâs behalf, resulting in over 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app. The only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every other app follows.
Weâve worked with Spotify frequently to help them bring their service to more devices and platforms:
Spotify is free to build apps for â and compete on â our products and platforms, and we hope they do.
Spotify wants all the benefits of a free app without being free.
A full 84 percent of the apps in the App Store pay nothing to Apple when you download or use the app. Thatâs not discrimination, as Spotify claims; itâs by design:
Spotify Not In Apple App Store Download
The only contribution that Apple requires is for digital goods and services that are purchased inside the app using our secure in-app purchase system. As Spotify points out, that revenue share is 30 percent for the first year of an annual subscription â but they left out that it drops to 15 percent in the years after.
Thatâs not the only information Spotify left out about how their business works:
Letâs be clear about what that means. Apple connects Spotify to our users. We provide the platform by which users download and update their app. We share critical software development tools to support Spotifyâs app building. And we built a secure payment system â no small undertaking â which allows users to have faith in in-app transactions. Spotify is asking to keep all those benefits while also retaining 100 percent of the revenue.
Spotify wouldnât be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, but now theyâre leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs. We think thatâs wrong.
What does that have to do with music? A lot.
We share Spotifyâs love of music and their vision of sharing it with the world. Where we differ is how you achieve that goal.Underneath the rhetoric, Spotifyâs aim is to makemore money off othersâ work. And itâs not just the App Store that theyâre trying to squeeze â itâs also artists, musicians and songwriters.
Just this week, Spotify sued music creators after a decision by the US Copyright Royalty Board required Spotify to increase its royalty payments. This isnât just wrong, it represents a real, meaningful and damaging step backwards for the music industry.
Appleâs approach has always been to grow the pie. By creating new marketplaces, we can create more opportunities not just for our business, but for artists, creators, entrepreneurs and every âcrazy oneâ with a big idea. Thatâs in our DNA, itâs the right model to grow the next big app ideas and, ultimately, itâs better for customers.
Weâre proud of the work weâve done to help Spotify build a successful business reaching hundreds of millions of music lovers, and we wish them continued success â after all, that was the whole point of creating the App Store in the first place.
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By | Published on Wednesday 17 June 2020
Spotify yesterday welcomed the news that the European Commission has formally opened an investigation into whether or not Appleâs rules for app developers making products distributed via its app store are anti-competitive. Meanwhile Apple said EU officials were wasting their time advancing âbaseless complaintsâ from a small number of tech sector freeloaders.
Various digital music companies have complained over the years that if they sign up subscribers via an iOS app they have to do so via Appleâs transactions system which charges a 15-30% commission.
For digital music platforms that pay up to 70% of their revenues over to the music industry, thatâs a major problem. Their choices are basically to either pass the Apple charge on to the customer for in-app subscriptions or to just not allow people to subscribe in-app. But in both scenarios, Apple wonât let the streaming service tell customers that they can also sign up via said serviceâs own website.
Of course, Apple Music doesnât have any of these problems. So, for a company like Spotify, depending on which of those two choices you go for, either your service on Apple devices looks more expensive than that of your main competitor, or â unlike your main competitor â becoming a premium subscriber is a slightly complicated process.
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Having quietly â and sometimes not so quietly â moaned about this for years, Spotify ramped things up in March last year by filing a formal complaint with the European Commission, arguing that Appleâs policies in this domain were anti-competitive and shouldnât be allowed. Such a big issue has this become for Spotify, it even set up a standalone website to air its grievances.
A public war of words them followed between Spotify and Apple. For its part, Apple argued that it had invested heavily in its app ecosystem over the years and Spotify was a key beneficiary of all that investment. Therefore it was entirely fair for Apple to expect Spotify to pay its way if it wanted to use all the functionality of its app platform.
Apple wrote in a blog post last year: âSpotify wouldnât be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem. But now theyâre leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs. We think thatâs wrongâ.
The European Commission announced yesterday that it was now formally investigating Appleâs app store policies in response to both Spotifyâs complaint and another from an unnamed e-book and audio-book provider.
Its investigation, the Commission said, would âassess whether Appleâs rules for app developers on the distribution of apps via the App Store violate EU competition rules. The investigations concern in particular the mandatory use of Appleâs own proprietary in-app purchase system and restrictions on the ability of developers to inform iPhone and iPad users of alternative cheaper purchasing possibilities outside of appsâ.
The Commissionâs Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, who is in charge of competition policy, added: âMobile applications have fundamentally changed the way we access content. Apple sets the rules for the distribution of apps to users of iPhones and iPadsâ.
âIt appearsâ, she went on, âthat Apple obtained a âgatekeeperâ role when it comes to the distribution of apps and content to users of Appleâs popular devicesâ. We need to ensure that Appleâs rules do not distort competition in markets where Apple is competing with other app developers, for example with its music streaming service Apple Music or with Apple Books. I have therefore decided to take a close look at Appleâs App Store rules and their compliance with EU competition rulesâ.
Responding to the news that a formal investigation was now underway, Spotify said in a statement: âToday is a good day for consumers, Spotify and other app developers across Europe and around the world. Appleâs anticompetitive behaviour has intentionally disadvantaged competitors and deprived consumers of meaningful choice for far too long. We welcome the European Commissionâs decision to formally investigate Apple, and hope theyâll act with urgency to ensure fair competition on the iOS platform for all participants in the digital economyâ.
Needless to say, Apple was less impressed by the development. âItâs disappointing the European Commission is advancing baseless complaints from a handful of companies who simply want a free ride, and donât want to play by the same rules as everyone elseâ, it said.
Though it added that it welcomed the opportunity to prove to the EC that itâs the good guy here. âAt the end of the day, our goal is simpleâ, its statement continued, âfor our customers to have access to the best app or service of their choice, in a safe and secure environment. We welcome the opportunity to show the European Commission all weâve done to make that goal a realityâ.
Spotify Not In Apple App Store For PcREAD MORE ABOUT: Apple | Apple Music | European Commission | SpotifyComments are closed.
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