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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 blo

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 takes this seriously. The issue of the 30% cut alone is enough for further investigation, particularly as Apple now uses that as an advantage to undercut Spotify with Apple Music.

zimpenfish 8y ago
> - Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch / HomePad But they've blocked every streaming music thing, right? It wasn't a vindictive campaign targetted at Spotify as this timeline is suggesting - no-one got to build streaming music apps for the Watch or HomePod IIRC.
- owenwil 8y ago
  I believe this is their point: Apple deliberately leaves those features unbuilt in order to give itself a market position that others can't compete with
  - darklion 8y ago
    Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism?
    - dmitriid 8y ago
      EDIT: This is no longer true, and doesn't exist in the guidelines [---- obsolete info ----] Yeah, it's a bit of a grey area. However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? [---- obsolete info ----]
      - theli0nheart 8y ago
        > However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? You should probably pull out the relevant quote from the guidelines. I don't think this is a thing anymore, at least in the way you're describing. If they did enforce it it would be a huge blow to the App Store.
        dmitriid 8y ago
        You're right. This is no longer in the guidelines, updated my comment accordingly
    - theli0nheart 8y ago
      > Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? I wish you'd stopped here because this is an interesting question, but the rest of your comment feels like it stretches things a bit. What Spotify seems to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong), is that Apple does provide the technical capabilities for third parties to do as they're asking, but Apple is rejecting proposals purely on whim. It's not like there's not a API to stream music on the Apple Watch or play music through HomePod. It's all there. Apple's just blocking them from using it.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Once you publish an API you’re stuck with supporting it. When I’m hacking around with a library I wrote for my own use, I might do all sorts of things while I’m iterating but don’t want others to consume until they are fully baked. The same thing about not allowing others to use “private APIs”. No guarantees are made about any methods that I didn’t make public. If I change that method in future releases, and your software that depends on it breaks - so be it. Windows is full of backward compatibility hacks because one piece of software that wanted to use an undocumented method. Apple has since day one had APIs that it used privately until they were fully baked and made public. Do you think that Apple waited two or three years to make share extensions public because of competitive reasons?
    - rorykoehler 8y ago
      Is it really a platform if it doesn't support 3rd party businesses?
      - mediocrejoker 8y ago
        Who gets to define the term platform? I think this is just arguing semantics.
        rahoulb 8y ago
        I think that's precisely the point. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a device then I expect it to only contain Apple software. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a platform then I expect to be able to install 3rd party software on it. The real question is how much feature-parity should 3rd parties expect when developing on another company's platform?
    - cromwellian 8y ago
      Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. I'd say if you're selling $1200 computer devices, one principle of that is ownership and that you get to run what you want, not what Apple wants. We seem to have come a long way on this site from fighting Tivoization of embedded platforms, and unrepairable, unfixable, unhackable consumer electronics, to people making excuses for a super locked down platform, and not even on the excuse that it helps security, but from a philosophical standpoint that somehow Apple is morally right to do whatever they want. Yes, you have a choice of not buying Apple software, just like you had the choice of not buying Windows and using Linux, or building a MythTV instead of a Tivo, but keep in mind, in the latter case, this was only possible because the CableCard standard was forced by law on the cable industry. Apple can maintain their high levels of security and privacy without their 30% cut of subscriptions, it's a false dichotomy to pretend their behavior is anything but rent seeking.
      - coldacid 8y ago
        >Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. At the same time though, Microsoft wasn't preventing other developers from using those hidden APIs (if they could find them) nor preventing them from publishing their own competing apps. Sure, Microsoft's behaviour at the time was anti-competitive and sometimes even predatory, but they were never so on Windows to the extent that Apple is today on iOS.
    - abelsson 8y ago
      > Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? Yes. > An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. To do otherwise, is to invite platform owners to be (potentially abusive) monopolists with a license to favor their own services instead of promoting and maintaining fair competition in markets on top of that platform. In western societies, since the last century, that has been behavior which has been regulated by law and courts.
      - londons_explore 8y ago
        For comparison, Android keeps a very clear line between the 'Platform', and the 'Apps'. Every API on the platform is available to all apps which have the necessary permissions. Sure, it might look like Google has taken over key low level features of the device like updates and wifi location, but in fact from the platform perspective, all those components have an open API and can be replaced. The only fly in the ointment here is some of the API's require powerful permissions which aren't allowed in store apps, but you can still sideload them, or use an alternate store.
        throwaway198389 8y ago
        This may have changed recently, haven't used an Android in a bit, but this wasn't true (and still probably isn't). Specifically my company wanted to break our app into multiple apps and give a way for people to easily install the companions. If you send the user to the Play Store page, about 75% of users would dropoff, in user studies much of it was confusion about what to do once they saw the play store page. Google has an api that is a much simpler flow than the full store experience which has much lower user dropoff. If you're curious where it's used, one example is the Google Drive app to install the Docs, Sheets, etc. The API validates that the calling app is an app signed by the Google dev cert. This isn't a security issue, you could just ship one app with all the functionality. It's clear they just wanted to reduce user drop off in a flow, but now provide that option to others. I understand the potential for abuse even though the api still checked with the user. It wouldn't bother me if no one had access to the API, we'd just have to deal with it. But it felt anti-competitive that Google had it and we did not. IIRC there are a few other similar non-security private APIs and they also felt anti-competitive to us. That said, it was no where near on the order of Apple, where it's commonplace on iOS.
    - Hamuko 8y ago
      You can also ask if Netflix has a /right/ to send their videos to consumers using Comcast's network. Or if Bing has a /right/ to be accessible on Google Chrome.
      - berbec 8y ago
        Thanks to recent FCC rule changes, the answer in the USA is: "For Now...."
    - buboard 8y ago
      > to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Perhaps they should not be allowed (by law) to change the terms of the platform for X amount of time.
  - mcphage 8y ago
    > Apple deliberately leaves those features unbuilt in order to give itself a market position that others can't compete with There's a vast gulf between "Spotify was blocked" and "Apple didn't spend time and money building a service that Spotify wanted".
    - simongr3dal 8y ago
      From a layman perspective: Why can Siri make Apple Music play artists, albums, playlists, and songs but I can't ask Siri to do the same with Spotify? Clearly the technology is there, but Apple is not letting Spotify use it.
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        Spotify should be able to do this using the API provided in iOS 12.
        gerardnll 8y ago
        It's not about the tech, it's about policy. Tech is there, https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/media_intent_shortcuts/playing_media_through_siri_shortcuts https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/media_inte... I'm sure Spotify has no problems with the knowledge of its engineers, I just found the APIs in 5 min. In fact, number 4 of this page explains your comment: https://www.timetoplayfair.com/facts/ https://www.timetoplayfair.com/facts/
    - fnordsensei 8y ago
      This is for the lawyers to make sense of, but in electing to be a platform provider, they should be held to higher standards in my opinion. They did indeed have "the service" in question, it was just limited to Apple's own offering. It's a scenario not unlike net neutrality: an infrastructure provider that is also a content provider can put themselves or select customers in a position where free market forces are hindered or suspended in order to achieve a monopoly-like status.
      - 8y ago
  - zimpenfish 8y ago
    Except they have a history of later opening up some of these features to others - see password managers, ~streaming~music~on~the~Watch~, etc. EDIT: I thought you could now stream on the Watch but further research suggests that's still not possible. In summary, confusion.
- hopler 8y ago
  Can iOS natively or iTunes stream music through those devices?
- ScoutOrgo 8y ago
  Feels worse to me than what Google was heavily fined for.
- Aissen 8y ago
  Yes, every streaming music thing but Apple Music. Available in watchOS 4.1 (vs 5.0 a year later for spotify). And for HomePod since release AFAIK.
  - Aissen 8y ago
    It's also funny because Spotify won't let other people integrate their streaming service on a device (even only for premium subscribers) if you don't follow a huge list of restrictions.
cujo 8y ago
> 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.
- 0xCMP 8y ago
  If a random guy can make the app then Spotify could certainly have made an Apple Watch app. If anything it makes the case that if it were so simple for a single random dev that unless Apple itself were preventing it there is no reason the app wouldn't have been released.
  - gerardnll 8y ago
    For god sake, it's about policy not tech inability! You don't even need to read the website to know that. WatchOS has APIs like iOS, it's not a matter of being 'hard' to program. It's because if you're nobody, the spotlight is not on you every step you take. But Spotify being your competitor is being close watched.
    - rahoulb 8y ago
      But it was Spotify that asked the random guy to take the app down. If anything I would have thought it would be in Spotify's interests to keep it up - "look it's possible, but Apple isn't allowing us"
      - gerardnll 8y ago
        Of course, because this guy had no rights. It’s already technically possible without having to keep an app alive that’s infringing your property just to say ‘hey look’
- ChicagoBoy11 8y ago
  Counterargument: Apple's review process is more likely to let "some guy's" app slip through the cracks and make it in the App Store than the official app of one of its huge competitors with an install base of many, many, many millions of devices.
rhinoceraptor 8y ago
I don't see how blocking a company actively trying to monopolize podcasts from using the Apple recommendation API is monopolistic. Apple podcasts (either intentionally or just from neglect) have always been backed by open RSS podcasting.
tumetab1 8y ago
> The issue of the 30% cut alone is enough for further investigation, Not really, it's 30% for everyone, not just Spotify.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  Unless "everyone" also includes Apple Music, then it's anti-competitive.
  - Grustaf 8y ago
    That’s like demanding newpapers pay full price for ad space on their own pages. Just absurd. What does it even mean, Apple owns Apple Music.
    - jdietrich 8y ago
      Apple have a monopoly on the distribution of iOS apps, so they are required to offer fair terms to all app vendors, including themselves. Apple could charge themselves the 30% App Store fee for Apple Music, demonstrating that the App Store is a fair marketplace that doesn't artificially advantage Apple's own services. It would then be incumbent on Apple to prove that Apple Music is priced fairly, rather than being deliberately operated at a loss to squeeze other streaming music services out of the market.
      - usaphp 8y ago
        NYT Newspaper also has a monopoly on distribution of ads on NYT pages, so should they charge themselves to put their own ads?
        code_sloth 8y ago
        Yes. So costs of putting up an ad are reflected in the relevant departments. Large corps do this all the time, transferring money from the left pocket to their right pocket. It's somewhat similar to net neutrality proposals. AT&T doesn't have a monopoly as an ISP. However, if AT&T starts/acquires a video streaming service, they should not give unfair advantages to their own service because they want to compete with Netflix.
jackson1372 8y ago
If you read between the lines, it's clear that Spotify was able to make a normal watch app. But they wanted to make one that had special functionality not yet allowed by Apple, for any app, not just Spotify.
- calcifer 8y ago
  There is a fine line between reading between the lines and fabricating things. Can you point to what exactly in that website substantiates your implication?
  - dabernathy89 8y ago
    Their timeline is a bit unclear. They claim that in 2015 and 2016, they were denied outright. In 2017 they say that "Apple continues to make it challenging for us to deliver a workable streaming solution for the Apple Watch". Then in 2018 they say that "Apple finally allows enhanced functionality for the Spotify app on the Apple Watch".
    - graeme 8y ago
      Until watchos 5, 3rd party apps couldn’t do lte streaming. That said, lte was new in watchos 4, the tslk was that apple wanted to initially restrict it for battery life reasons. Spotify could have made a watch app that provided controls and had offline somgs. They didn’t, and kept shutting down spps that did, or buying them and shutting them. This was a major sore point against spotify on the apple watch subreddit. Even now they’re dragging their feet, iirc.
      - Kesty 8y ago
        Their point is that Apple app could do that and it was unfair to block other apps to be able to do the same.
        graeme 8y ago
        The watch is a new, battery constrained device. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to limit 3rd party apps for a bit while sorting out how to work with the size constraints. I’m guessing apple will add lte support for 3rd party apps in watchos 6. Meanwhile, 3rd party apps have had the ability to make apps with offline support since June 2018. Most audio apps have added this. Spotify....has not. What’s the holdup? Apple watch users are pretty frustrated with spotify: if all the other audio apps can do it, why haven’t they? (Lte is an edge case: few watches have lte, and even fewer have an active lte plan. Offline audio is the main use case spotify still isn’t doing)
matwood 8y ago
> - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Interesting one since it is Spotify that is trying to close the currently open podcasting universe. Let's not pretend that Spotify is either the white knight or the underdog here. This is two big companies negotiating over pricing.
- ajscanlan 8y ago
  Well Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world, Spotify may not be a white knight but they're definitely an underdog.
  - peruvian 8y ago
    I'd be more likely to consider Spotify an underdog if they weren't a VC-fueled, still-not-profitable startup.
    - jhall1468 8y ago
      I'd like to think comparing a VC-funded company to one of the largest public companies on earth the very definition of underdog.
      - penagwin 8y ago
        Especially one that isn't currently making money, presumably if Apple wasn't engaging in anti-market strategies they would have more revenue. How much, I have no clue - but if they can't even have a "get premium now" button in the app then that's insane to me. The 30% fee Apple would take isn't a real alternative either, it's still not profitable.
      - iav 8y ago
        Spotify is public
ihuman 8y ago
> It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Is this talking about the Apple Watch-Podcasting issue? Until recently, podcast apps on the watch had issues saving where you are in an episode because they couldn't constantly run in the background; you could still play audio in the background without your app, you just couldn't watch the percentage played. Fitness tracking apps were allowed to run in the background forever, so some podcast apps told the API they were fitness apps to get around the restriction [0]. Apple later removed this loophole and created the APIs necessary for podcast apps to work on the watch [1]. [0] https://marco.org/2017/08/10/removed-send-to-watch#fn:pLK9h4axdwphack https://marco.org/2017/08/10/removed-send-to-watch#fn:pLK9h4... [1] https://marco.org/2018/09/17/overcast5 https://marco.org/2018/09/17/overcast5
joshstrange 8y ago
- Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch How? By not providing API's to do what they wanted? yawn Next? - It blocked Spotify from building apps for HomePod How? By not providing API's to do what they wanted? yawn Next? - It blocked Spotify from building apps for Siri How? By not providing API's to do what they wanted? yawn Next? - It blocks Spotify updates on a regular basis Wakes up Ok here we have the first real issue, BUT even with that said this is SUPER one-sided. We have only Spotify's word and given their liberal stretching of the truth (or outright breaking it in some cases) I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies I'm going to need more info on this because it is super vague.
jmull 8y ago
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.
gideon_b 8y ago
It's pretty clear that Apple is using a dominant platform position to raise prices and block competition. By raising prices and blocking access to competing services, Apple is acting with malice to consumer welfare.
scarface74 8y ago
-Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch The newest version of WatchOS does allow it. The first generation of watchOS really didn’t allow any apps - just remote views of iOS apps (yeah I’m simplifying it). - It blocked Spotify from building apps for HomePod Apple doesn’t have any apps on the HomePod. Now we are going to force all single purpose devices to ship with an SDK? - It blocked Spotify from building apps for Siri Apple also just came out with any third party integration with Siri a version or two ago. Again we want the government to dictate the timeline when they build features for apps? - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Netflix also blocked its API from most third parties years ago. Can we sue Netflix?

zimpenfish 8y ago

> - Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch / HomePad But they've blocked every streaming music thing, right? It wasn't a vindictive campaign targetted at Spotify as this timeline is suggesting - no-one got to build streaming music apps for the Watch or HomePod IIRC.

owenwil 8y ago
I believe this is their point: Apple deliberately leaves those features unbuilt in order to give itself a market position that others can't compete with
- darklion 8y ago
  Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism?
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    EDIT: This is no longer true, and doesn't exist in the guidelines [---- obsolete info ----] Yeah, it's a bit of a grey area. However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? [---- obsolete info ----]
    - theli0nheart 8y ago
      > However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? You should probably pull out the relevant quote from the guidelines. I don't think this is a thing anymore, at least in the way you're describing. If they did enforce it it would be a huge blow to the App Store.
      - dmitriid 8y ago
        You're right. This is no longer in the guidelines, updated my comment accordingly
  - theli0nheart 8y ago
    > Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? I wish you'd stopped here because this is an interesting question, but the rest of your comment feels like it stretches things a bit. What Spotify seems to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong), is that Apple does provide the technical capabilities for third parties to do as they're asking, but Apple is rejecting proposals purely on whim. It's not like there's not a API to stream music on the Apple Watch or play music through HomePod. It's all there. Apple's just blocking them from using it.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Once you publish an API you’re stuck with supporting it. When I’m hacking around with a library I wrote for my own use, I might do all sorts of things while I’m iterating but don’t want others to consume until they are fully baked. The same thing about not allowing others to use “private APIs”. No guarantees are made about any methods that I didn’t make public. If I change that method in future releases, and your software that depends on it breaks - so be it. Windows is full of backward compatibility hacks because one piece of software that wanted to use an undocumented method. Apple has since day one had APIs that it used privately until they were fully baked and made public. Do you think that Apple waited two or three years to make share extensions public because of competitive reasons?
  - rorykoehler 8y ago
    Is it really a platform if it doesn't support 3rd party businesses?
    - mediocrejoker 8y ago
      Who gets to define the term platform? I think this is just arguing semantics.
      - rahoulb 8y ago
        I think that's precisely the point. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a device then I expect it to only contain Apple software. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a platform then I expect to be able to install 3rd party software on it. The real question is how much feature-parity should 3rd parties expect when developing on another company's platform?
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. I'd say if you're selling $1200 computer devices, one principle of that is ownership and that you get to run what you want, not what Apple wants. We seem to have come a long way on this site from fighting Tivoization of embedded platforms, and unrepairable, unfixable, unhackable consumer electronics, to people making excuses for a super locked down platform, and not even on the excuse that it helps security, but from a philosophical standpoint that somehow Apple is morally right to do whatever they want. Yes, you have a choice of not buying Apple software, just like you had the choice of not buying Windows and using Linux, or building a MythTV instead of a Tivo, but keep in mind, in the latter case, this was only possible because the CableCard standard was forced by law on the cable industry. Apple can maintain their high levels of security and privacy without their 30% cut of subscriptions, it's a false dichotomy to pretend their behavior is anything but rent seeking.
    - coldacid 8y ago
      >Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. At the same time though, Microsoft wasn't preventing other developers from using those hidden APIs (if they could find them) nor preventing them from publishing their own competing apps. Sure, Microsoft's behaviour at the time was anti-competitive and sometimes even predatory, but they were never so on Windows to the extent that Apple is today on iOS.
  - abelsson 8y ago
    > Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? Yes. > An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. To do otherwise, is to invite platform owners to be (potentially abusive) monopolists with a license to favor their own services instead of promoting and maintaining fair competition in markets on top of that platform. In western societies, since the last century, that has been behavior which has been regulated by law and courts.
    - londons_explore 8y ago
      For comparison, Android keeps a very clear line between the 'Platform', and the 'Apps'. Every API on the platform is available to all apps which have the necessary permissions. Sure, it might look like Google has taken over key low level features of the device like updates and wifi location, but in fact from the platform perspective, all those components have an open API and can be replaced. The only fly in the ointment here is some of the API's require powerful permissions which aren't allowed in store apps, but you can still sideload them, or use an alternate store.
      - throwaway198389 8y ago
        This may have changed recently, haven't used an Android in a bit, but this wasn't true (and still probably isn't). Specifically my company wanted to break our app into multiple apps and give a way for people to easily install the companions. If you send the user to the Play Store page, about 75% of users would dropoff, in user studies much of it was confusion about what to do once they saw the play store page. Google has an api that is a much simpler flow than the full store experience which has much lower user dropoff. If you're curious where it's used, one example is the Google Drive app to install the Docs, Sheets, etc. The API validates that the calling app is an app signed by the Google dev cert. This isn't a security issue, you could just ship one app with all the functionality. It's clear they just wanted to reduce user drop off in a flow, but now provide that option to others. I understand the potential for abuse even though the api still checked with the user. It wouldn't bother me if no one had access to the API, we'd just have to deal with it. But it felt anti-competitive that Google had it and we did not. IIRC there are a few other similar non-security private APIs and they also felt anti-competitive to us. That said, it was no where near on the order of Apple, where it's commonplace on iOS.
  - Hamuko 8y ago
    You can also ask if Netflix has a /right/ to send their videos to consumers using Comcast's network. Or if Bing has a /right/ to be accessible on Google Chrome.
    - berbec 8y ago
      Thanks to recent FCC rule changes, the answer in the USA is: "For Now...."
  - buboard 8y ago
    > to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Perhaps they should not be allowed (by law) to change the terms of the platform for X amount of time.
- mcphage 8y ago
  > Apple deliberately leaves those features unbuilt in order to give itself a market position that others can't compete with There's a vast gulf between "Spotify was blocked" and "Apple didn't spend time and money building a service that Spotify wanted".
  - simongr3dal 8y ago
    From a layman perspective: Why can Siri make Apple Music play artists, albums, playlists, and songs but I can't ask Siri to do the same with Spotify? Clearly the technology is there, but Apple is not letting Spotify use it.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      Spotify should be able to do this using the API provided in iOS 12.
      - gerardnll 8y ago
        It's not about the tech, it's about policy. Tech is there, https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/media_intent_shortcuts/playing_media_through_siri_shortcuts https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/media_inte... I'm sure Spotify has no problems with the knowledge of its engineers, I just found the APIs in 5 min. In fact, number 4 of this page explains your comment: https://www.timetoplayfair.com/facts/ https://www.timetoplayfair.com/facts/
  - fnordsensei 8y ago
    This is for the lawyers to make sense of, but in electing to be a platform provider, they should be held to higher standards in my opinion. They did indeed have "the service" in question, it was just limited to Apple's own offering. It's a scenario not unlike net neutrality: an infrastructure provider that is also a content provider can put themselves or select customers in a position where free market forces are hindered or suspended in order to achieve a monopoly-like status.
    - 8y ago
- zimpenfish 8y ago
  Except they have a history of later opening up some of these features to others - see password managers, ~streaming~music~on~the~Watch~, etc. EDIT: I thought you could now stream on the Watch but further research suggests that's still not possible. In summary, confusion.
hopler 8y ago
Can iOS natively or iTunes stream music through those devices?
ScoutOrgo 8y ago
Feels worse to me than what Google was heavily fined for.
Aissen 8y ago
Yes, every streaming music thing but Apple Music. Available in watchOS 4.1 (vs 5.0 a year later for spotify). And for HomePod since release AFAIK.
- Aissen 8y ago
  It's also funny because Spotify won't let other people integrate their streaming service on a device (even only for premium subscribers) if you don't follow a huge list of restrictions.

cujo 8y ago

> 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.

0xCMP 8y ago
If a random guy can make the app then Spotify could certainly have made an Apple Watch app. If anything it makes the case that if it were so simple for a single random dev that unless Apple itself were preventing it there is no reason the app wouldn't have been released.
- gerardnll 8y ago
  For god sake, it's about policy not tech inability! You don't even need to read the website to know that. WatchOS has APIs like iOS, it's not a matter of being 'hard' to program. It's because if you're nobody, the spotlight is not on you every step you take. But Spotify being your competitor is being close watched.
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    But it was Spotify that asked the random guy to take the app down. If anything I would have thought it would be in Spotify's interests to keep it up - "look it's possible, but Apple isn't allowing us"
    - gerardnll 8y ago
      Of course, because this guy had no rights. It’s already technically possible without having to keep an app alive that’s infringing your property just to say ‘hey look’
ChicagoBoy11 8y ago
Counterargument: Apple's review process is more likely to let "some guy's" app slip through the cracks and make it in the App Store than the official app of one of its huge competitors with an install base of many, many, many millions of devices.

rhinoceraptor 8y ago

I don't see how blocking a company actively trying to monopolize podcasts from using the Apple recommendation API is monopolistic. Apple podcasts (either intentionally or just from neglect) have always been backed by open RSS podcasting.

tumetab1 8y ago

> The issue of the 30% cut alone is enough for further investigation, Not really, it's 30% for everyone, not just Spotify.

jdietrich 8y ago
Unless "everyone" also includes Apple Music, then it's anti-competitive.
- Grustaf 8y ago
  That’s like demanding newpapers pay full price for ad space on their own pages. Just absurd. What does it even mean, Apple owns Apple Music.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    Apple have a monopoly on the distribution of iOS apps, so they are required to offer fair terms to all app vendors, including themselves. Apple could charge themselves the 30% App Store fee for Apple Music, demonstrating that the App Store is a fair marketplace that doesn't artificially advantage Apple's own services. It would then be incumbent on Apple to prove that Apple Music is priced fairly, rather than being deliberately operated at a loss to squeeze other streaming music services out of the market.
    - usaphp 8y ago
      NYT Newspaper also has a monopoly on distribution of ads on NYT pages, so should they charge themselves to put their own ads?
      - code_sloth 8y ago
        Yes. So costs of putting up an ad are reflected in the relevant departments. Large corps do this all the time, transferring money from the left pocket to their right pocket. It's somewhat similar to net neutrality proposals. AT&T doesn't have a monopoly as an ISP. However, if AT&T starts/acquires a video streaming service, they should not give unfair advantages to their own service because they want to compete with Netflix.

jackson1372 8y ago

If you read between the lines, it's clear that Spotify was able to make a normal watch app. But they wanted to make one that had special functionality not yet allowed by Apple, for any app, not just Spotify.

calcifer 8y ago
There is a fine line between reading between the lines and fabricating things. Can you point to what exactly in that website substantiates your implication?
- dabernathy89 8y ago
  Their timeline is a bit unclear. They claim that in 2015 and 2016, they were denied outright. In 2017 they say that "Apple continues to make it challenging for us to deliver a workable streaming solution for the Apple Watch". Then in 2018 they say that "Apple finally allows enhanced functionality for the Spotify app on the Apple Watch".
  - graeme 8y ago
    Until watchos 5, 3rd party apps couldn’t do lte streaming. That said, lte was new in watchos 4, the tslk was that apple wanted to initially restrict it for battery life reasons. Spotify could have made a watch app that provided controls and had offline somgs. They didn’t, and kept shutting down spps that did, or buying them and shutting them. This was a major sore point against spotify on the apple watch subreddit. Even now they’re dragging their feet, iirc.
    - Kesty 8y ago
      Their point is that Apple app could do that and it was unfair to block other apps to be able to do the same.
      - graeme 8y ago
        The watch is a new, battery constrained device. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to limit 3rd party apps for a bit while sorting out how to work with the size constraints. I’m guessing apple will add lte support for 3rd party apps in watchos 6. Meanwhile, 3rd party apps have had the ability to make apps with offline support since June 2018. Most audio apps have added this. Spotify....has not. What’s the holdup? Apple watch users are pretty frustrated with spotify: if all the other audio apps can do it, why haven’t they? (Lte is an edge case: few watches have lte, and even fewer have an active lte plan. Offline audio is the main use case spotify still isn’t doing)

matwood 8y ago

> - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Interesting one since it is Spotify that is trying to close the currently open podcasting universe. Let's not pretend that Spotify is either the white knight or the underdog here. This is two big companies negotiating over pricing.

ajscanlan 8y ago
Well Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world, Spotify may not be a white knight but they're definitely an underdog.
- peruvian 8y ago
  I'd be more likely to consider Spotify an underdog if they weren't a VC-fueled, still-not-profitable startup.
  - jhall1468 8y ago
    I'd like to think comparing a VC-funded company to one of the largest public companies on earth the very definition of underdog.
    - penagwin 8y ago
      Especially one that isn't currently making money, presumably if Apple wasn't engaging in anti-market strategies they would have more revenue. How much, I have no clue - but if they can't even have a "get premium now" button in the app then that's insane to me. The 30% fee Apple would take isn't a real alternative either, it's still not profitable.
    - iav 8y ago
      Spotify is public

ihuman 8y ago

> It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Is this talking about the Apple Watch-Podcasting issue? Until recently, podcast apps on the watch had issues saving where you are in an episode because they couldn't constantly run in the background; you could still play audio in the background without your app, you just couldn't watch the percentage played. Fitness tracking apps were allowed to run in the background forever, so some podcast apps told the API they were fitness apps to get around the restriction [0]. Apple later removed this loophole and created the APIs necessary for podcast apps to work on the watch [1]. [0] https://marco.org/2017/08/10/removed-send-to-watch#fn:pLK9h4axdwphack https://marco.org/2017/08/10/removed-send-to-watch#fn:pLK9h4... [1] https://marco.org/2018/09/17/overcast5 https://marco.org/2018/09/17/overcast5

joshstrange 8y ago

- Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch How? By not providing API's to do what they wanted? yawn Next? - It blocked Spotify from building apps for HomePod How? By not providing API's to do what they wanted? yawn Next? - It blocked Spotify from building apps for Siri How? By not providing API's to do what they wanted? yawn Next? - It blocks Spotify updates on a regular basis Wakes up Ok here we have the first real issue, BUT even with that said this is SUPER one-sided. We have only Spotify's word and given their liberal stretching of the truth (or outright breaking it in some cases) I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies I'm going to need more info on this because it is super vague.

jmull 8y ago

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.

gideon_b 8y ago

It's pretty clear that Apple is using a dominant platform position to raise prices and block competition. By raising prices and blocking access to competing services, Apple is acting with malice to consumer welfare.

scarface74 8y ago

-Apple blocked Spotify from working with Apple Watch The newest version of WatchOS does allow it. The first generation of watchOS really didn’t allow any apps - just remote views of iOS apps (yeah I’m simplifying it). - It blocked Spotify from building apps for HomePod Apple doesn’t have any apps on the HomePod. Now we are going to force all single purpose devices to ship with an SDK? - It blocked Spotify from building apps for Siri Apple also just came out with any third party integration with Siri a version or two ago. Again we want the government to dictate the timeline when they build features for apps? - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Netflix also blocked its API from most third parties years ago. Can we sue Netflix?