3 ms·

When Apple says Spotify is asking for preferential treatment over developers of other apps, does that include the developers of Apple Music? Does Apple Music g

When Apple says Spotify is asking for preferential treatment over developers of other apps, does that include the developers of Apple Music? Does Apple Music go through the same sort of independent and opaque approval process Spotify does? Do they have to wait the same time? Do they get rejected for unapproved business models? Does Apple Music take 30% of it's cut and give it away to the rest of the company? While I am not entirely unsympathetic to Apple's position, I think the preferential treatment argument is BS when Spotify's biggest competitor is Apple Music.

JohnTHaller 10y ago
Of course not. Apple uses the setup of iOS to ensure that its first party apps have a better experience than third party providers. Apple has always done this on iOS. If you attempt to compete with Apple on their own platform where they have the keys and make (and change) the rules on a whim, you will lose. People choose Apple Books because it's more convenient to pay vs Amazon (since Amazon isn't allowed to let people buy content like they can on competing platforms unless they funnel payments through Apple and give up 30%). People were choosing Apple Music over Spotify because Spotify cost $3 a month more (since they had to charge that to Apple users to cover the Apple tax for payments and weren't allowed to direct Apple users to the Spotify site to sign up for the same price as Apple Music without the Apple tax). Firefox and Google had to give up using their own browser engine (and all the competitive features and functionality that went with it) and use the Mobile Safari engine in order to even participate on iOS. Up until recently, they were even forced to use a lesser and slower version of the engine to ensure that Safari was always the (artificially) fastest browser on iOS.

3 ms·

When Apple says Spotify is asking for preferential treatment over developers of other apps, does that include the developers of Apple Music? Does Apple Music g

by addicted 10y ago

JohnTHaller 10y ago
Of course not. Apple uses the setup of iOS to ensure that its first party apps have a better experience than third party providers. Apple has always done this on iOS. If you attempt to compete with Apple on their own platform where they have the keys and make (and change) the rules on a whim, you will lose. People choose Apple Books because it's more convenient to pay vs Amazon (since Amazon isn't allowed to let people buy content like they can on competing platforms unless they funnel payments through Apple and give up 30%). People were choosing Apple Music over Spotify because Spotify cost $3 a month more (since they had to charge that to Apple users to cover the Apple tax for payments and weren't allowed to direct Apple users to the Spotify site to sign up for the same price as Apple Music without the Apple tax). Firefox and Google had to give up using their own browser engine (and all the competitive features and functionality that went with it) and use the Mobile Safari engine in order to even participate on iOS. Up until recently, they were even forced to use a lesser and slower version of the engine to ensure that Safari was always the (artificially) fastest browser on iOS.