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Apple Slams Spotify For Asking For 'Preferential Treatment' (buzzfeed.com)
On Thursday, Spotify made major accusations against Apple of playing unfair to its music service. The Swedish-based music company said that Apple didn't approve a new version of Spotify's iOS app because "it didn't want competition for Apple Music." The Cupertino-based company has responded to the accusations. In a letter sent to Spotify general counsel Horacio Gutierrez on Friday, Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell rebutted the streaming music service's allegations, adding "we find it troubling that you are asking for exemptions to the rules we apply to all developers and are publicly resorting to rumors and half-truths about our service," Sewell wrote. BuzzFeed News reports:"Our guidelines apply equally to all app developers, whether they are game developers, e-book sellers, video-streaming services or digital music distributors; and regardless of whether or not they compete against Apple. We did not alter our behavior or our rules when we introduced our own music streaming service or when Spotify became a competitor," Sewell explains. "Ironically, it is now Spotify that wants things to be different by asking for preferential treatment from Apple."
And as for Spotify's suggestion that Apple is treading on dangerous, anticompetitive ground, well, Sewell doesn't seem too concerned. "There is nothing in Apple's conduct that 'amounts to a violation of applicable antitrust laws.' Far from it," Sewell, writes after wryly observing that not only has Apple's platform generated "hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental revenue to Spotify"; but that the Spotify App currently in the App Store is still in violation of Apple's guidelines. "I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store's rules," he quips.Apple commentator John Gruber, writing for DaringFireball:Cry me a river. Spotify has long charged $12.99 via in-app subscriptions to get around the 30 percent "App Store tax". And Apple has now cut the long-term subscription split from 70-30 to 85-15. And Spotify is the streaming service most at war with artists over their abysmal royalty rates. Read between the lines and the real message here is that Apple Music is kicking Spotify's ass.
If you want to play in the Apple walled garden, you have to play according to the rules. Pissing and moaning outside the walled garden doesn't get you preferential treatment.
If you want to sell SUBSCRIPTIONS via your App on Apple, you have to give them a cut. There are means to circumvent (having people go to your website to signup and pay) but taking payment and not giving apple their pound of flesh has always been operating procedure. I am unsure the problem here? I mean, you might not like the terms (30% is a lot) but it hasn't changed in years.
As the hangman told the black guy on the gallows in Blazing Saddles, "Everyone is equal in my eyes."
and you are of course the dictator of who cares about anything or anyone ? If you don't like it ignore it, if you really did not care you'd not waste the time to post Just because you don't know anyone who uses Spotify that of course means that no one does...
You sir are a self involved douche bag...
Is that code for shill?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
"Apple fanboi John Gruber"
There, FTFY.
You know, where Apple wouldn't approve the app, and never tell them why.
"Go Apple"? Am I supposed to be happy or sad? It's hard to tell these days.
It really sounds like Spotify is feeling financial pressure so they are trying to negotiate better terms by claiming Apples behavior is all about pushing Spotify out of business, when the truth is Apple benefits from Spotify being successful (the more they sell the more Apple makes). The only question in my mind is, does Apple make more net profit from that 30% of Spotify revenue (for just hosting) or does it make more with Apple Music (where it has to code, test, support, advertise, host and pay labels/artists)?
That it's Apple being a dick here.
And Spotify is the streaming service most at war with artists over their abysmal royalty rates. Read between the lines and the real message here is that Apple Music is kicking Spotify's ass.
I read it as Apple being entirely irrelevant in the streaming market.
You realize that if it were Walmart doing this you'd be throwing a shitfit. However, because it's a "good" oppresive monopoly, that's okay that they're abusing their monopoly position.
we find it troubling that you are asking for exemptions to the rules we apply to all developers
And I find it troubling that Apple did not mention the rules that Spotify is asking to be exempt from. Though I will admit, I only give TFA a cursory glance (with javascript disabled), so maybe I missed it.
Statement autocompleted.
Apple doesn't have to pay their exorbitant percentage to somebody else. Therefore, even though their app is pedantically following the same rules, they're paying money to themselves, which means they are not, in any meaningful way, in the same position as third-party vendors. This is open-and-shut anticompetitive behavior by Apple. They're competing directly against other App Store vendors, and have given themselves preferential treatment. So those vendors should get special treatment to alleviate this serious antitrust violation. Anything short of that is quite likely to be per se illegal.
And Apple's General Counsel should know this, which means he is deliberately distorting reality with his letter. I can only assume that this means Apple is not just violating the law, but willfully violating the law, which means treble damages. Enjoy your lawsuit, Cupertino.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I am going to have to make it a point to downvote stories sourced from Buzzfeed News. I do not recognize this as a valid news source.
The two people whose comments were sought for this article are:
1) Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell
2) Apple commentator John Gruber, who said,
Note: Apple Music has 13 million subscribers. Spotify has 30 million subscribers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you actually read you would have your answers. Apple stated why they weren't allowed to continue operating. Basically Spotify was trying to circumvent the App Store.
Netflix doesn't?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Um.. That percentage is there to pay apple for the development and operation of the app store ecosystem. Apple is paying for that ecosystem every day in the form of developer salaries and massive infrastructure costs. To suggest that Apple gets to use the app store for free is one of the silliest things I have ever seen. It is like complaining about Microsoft not paying for Windows licenses. The only rational response to your argument is the equally silly comment of "Well why doesn't spotify just go make their own fucking massively popular smart phone and app store ecosystem?"
Most of the articles on this dispute aren't getting too deep into what's going on, but here's some more information...
1. Spotify's current app allows users to subscribe through the app, using Apple's billing system, which gives Apple of cut. User's can also subscribe on the Spotify website, which bypasses Apple's cut.
2. Spotify is not allowed to advertise through the app that users can subscribe on a website outside the app. Spotify and Apple have had a dispute over this in the past, but Spotify chose to do as Apple asked, and removed all in-app subscription advertising targeted at iPhone users.
3. Spotify is now trying to submit a new version of their app that offers no in-app subscription method, period, and also has no advertising or instructions on how a user can get a subscription. Spotify is assuming that even with no in-app advertising or instructions, users will figure out that they can subscribe on the website.
4. Apple is claiming that this is still breaking the rules, and thus is rejecting the new version of the app. Spotify is claiming that this doesn't break the rules, and that Apple is just going to keep rejecting the new version of the app as long as they can so that users are stuck using the older version of the app that still has in-app purchases, from which Apple gets a cut.
Erm, from what planet are you that you think you know so much about law on earth?
The main problem with streaming is: having the rights to stream the music.
And why the funk should Spottify not pay the 15% cut everyone pays for subscriptions sold via the App?
I'm pretty sure Apples App Store, pun intended, is run by a different company than Apple Inc. aka AAPL so good luck in court with your idiotic standpoint.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm pretty sure Apples App Store, pun intended, is run by a different company than Apple Inc. aka AAPL so good luck in court with your idiotic standpoint.
I'm pretty sure you're woefully uninformed on this.
To the best of my knowledge, Apple doesn't muck about with subsidiaries for all the different stuff they do. Selling computers, making operating systems, selling music downloads, selling apps, and selling music streaming subscriptions all fall within Apple Inc., whose stock ticker symbol is indeed AAPL.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
How does this affect anyone?
Presumably we, and various anti-trust lawyers are glued to this spat and munching popcorn. I'm certainly going to purchase my next phone based on music streaming services. /sarcasm
Or, you know, we don't care. It's a little weird for Apple to be playing in this space (as a HW company), it's a little weird the way Spotify is framing their argument...to the point that I question if their service has any actual value (it certainly has no profits). I question if such services can turn a profit given the almighty power of copyright. It feels like there's a struggle for a few strips of bacon, and two lions are going to dual to the death for those two strips of bacon. And the winner will bleed to death with bacon breath.
This is wrong.
Spotify tried to submit an update that linked a potential subscriber outside to their website to subscribe. That's against the rules.
BTW: The current Spotify app continues to work just fine (been using it all day).
Horse shit. You clearly need a refresher-course in Anti-Competitive behavior. See here.
Or for those of you are lazy:
Section 1: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal."
Section 2:
"Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony [. . . ]"
That is the original text of the Sherman Act. The law that basically makes it illegal to monopolize a market by position. Apple do not have this position. Android is a larger OS by market share, which Apple can not influence. If Apple and Google decided to divvy up the music streaming business that would be a violation and an effective duopoly, but that is not the case here.
Apple does have costs associated with running the App store, and they have disproportionally levied fees on payments in order to subsidize their costs to provide the App Store services to free apps. Thank goodness they have, since most small developers can not afford:
1. A real quality control department. The review process keeps many bugs out of the App Store. Not all, but most.
2. Shady, shitty, data steeling apps.
3. Apps infested with spyware, malware, etc... etc...
4. The infrastructure to support updates, discovery, sales channels, a user-review solution...
the list goes on....
If the benefits of the App Store didn't make it worth-while for app developers, the App Store would be pretty barren of apps. Its not. Apple do not have a monopoly on phones, phone OS's, and therefore can not have a monopoly on anything contained therein.
Mr. Sewell is right.
It feels like there's a struggle for a few strips of bacon, and two lions are going to dual to the death for those two strips of bacon.
The difference is for Apple, a music service can be a loss leader that fulfills the goal of building out the Apple "ecosystem". They don't have to make money from it for it to be a winner. That's why they will win in the end. They'll strike disadvantageous copyright deals just to drive the little guys out of town.
Uh, no. Apple distributes free apps for free whether they offer in-app purchases or not. Apple gets rewarded for that by people buying hardware for which there are lots of apps available. Therefore, it is entirely nonsensical to suggest that because an app is tied to a subscription service, that Apple somehow deserves a cut of those services solely because they provided the ability to download an app that consumes those services.
And that argument fundamentally falls apart for another reason: The only reason Spotify is distributed by Apple is because Apple will not allow companies to distribute their own apps. Therefore those costs of distributing the app via the App Store are entirely Apple's decision, forced upon Spotify by Apple, not the other way around. Apple doesn't get to dictate that everyone must use their distribution mechanism, and then turn around and claim that because other folks used their distribution mechanism, suddenly they owe Apple a percentage of their income in perpetuity. I understand that Apple wants that, but it certainly isn't owed to them.
Frankly, this is a bit like Ford changing the gasoline filler connector and requiring every gas station to use their special filler, then demanding a percentage of the cost of every gallon of gas pumped through that nozzle. The fact that anybody puts up with it from Apple is, frankly, amazing, and there's a reason most of the major players have chosen to present an unfriendly login screen with no hints of how to get an account, rather than giving up a huge chunk of their revenue to a company that has done basically nothing to earn a huge chunk of their monthly revenue.
And most of the big companies that haven't been non-user-friendly about it (e.g. Facebook) have gotten permission from Apple to ignore that part of the App Store rules. Yeah, Facebook takes credit cards for Ad purchasing right in the app. No in-app purchases. This makes Apple's position even more legally tenuous, IMO, because they'll make exceptions for Facebook, but won't make exceptions for a company whose services are in direct competition with an Apple-branded service. Danger, Will Robinson!
It is not free, but it is nearly free. The proportional costs for Apple Music's use of the store (payment system) are negligible. Realistically, because Apple aggregates billing for multiple services and gets preferential treatment for being such a huge vendor with such a low charge reversal rate, I'd imagine their cost for operating the billing system is less than 2% of the cost of the subscription. The difference between that number and 30% (or even 15%) represents a major competitive advantage.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Lets take a random industry, lets take the automobile industry.
A mature business has perhaps (inflation)*1.5% profitmargin. Lets say they have 3% profitmargin to make the number easy.
Lets say you need to get cars approved to be able to sell them. lets say one (or two) automaker owns the approval process and there are no practical way to setup more of them. Lets say Toyota impose a 30% "fee" on the entire industry. Who would be able to compete with toyota?
Are there anyone that really don't understand that it's absolutely impossible for an industry to pay 30% of their entire revenue (not just on profit) to a competitor? Really?
Anyone not understanding that every software company can't make their own phone with their own store and get everyone to port their apps to yet another store with another language/frameworks etc?
Sometimes I just question peoples intelligence, I really do.
Apple has absolutely no problem with people getting Spotify subscriptions from anywhere and using them with the Spotify app. Apple has a problem with a link or similar in the App Store app that sends people to the web site or somewhere. If Spotify is going to sell subscriptions from the app, Apple wants its cut.
In other words, Apple is applying its rules to subscriptions sold from the Spotify app. Spotify users were always free to subscribe on the website or pay the extra for the convenience of an Apple in-app purchase. Spotify itself was always free to leave the App Store price the same as the web page price or raise it on the App Store to compensate for Apple's cut.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The line in the sand is apparently over your head.
If you buy a product in the Amazon.com app, Apple has nothing to do with it, and doesn't get a cut. If you buy it in the iOS app, Apple is handling it and does get a cut. If the product is a subscription or license or something, once you bought it somewhere you can use it with the iOS app, and Apple's fine with it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Another day, another distorted car analogy.
No, this is not like a car manufacturer charging for gas "passed through their nozzle".
Apple's app store has become a victim of its own success, in a way, because it has made the process of app distribution on their hardware so effortless for the end user that it is now widely assumed to be trivial.
It has also vastly simplified the process for the developer as well. I know I'm going to get flak for saying this from developers with short memories, but it is true. In the worst (hardest) case you were distributing boxes on store shelves containing stamped CDs - which you then had to support through other means. In the best (easiest) case you were distributing a shareware download on a website, and begging your users for purchases like a street performer with a hat on the sidewalk. Either way your profits were undercut by rampant software piracy. Let me emphasize that - _RAMPANT_ software piracy.
The benefits to Apple's app distribution channel - as well as in the way they control that channel - are not to be dismissed as a mere "nozzle".
Instead of a car analogy, I prefer to use one of a movie theater: The iPhone is a theatre, and your app is a movie that the user wants to see. Apple's app store is the doorway, the cash register, the security guard, and ticket taker at the head of the line. You - the developer - bring them your 'movie', and they hand you back a cut of the ticket sales. There are other movie theaters - like the Android one down the road - but when you bring them your 'movie', they give you back less money than you expected, because in addition to the front doors and the cash register, they also have a number of back doors, as well as a few tunnels under the property, and their security guard doesn't pay much - or any - attention to these.
I find this a much better analogy to understand some of the requirements of running a good app store. It also provides a different context for interpreting the case made in TFA, which in terms of the analogy is something like this:
Let's say the movie theater chain is also in the business of making movies. They put their own stuff up on the marquee next to yours, and since they are a big business with good revenue, they can spend a lot of money on these movies, and even sell tickets to see them for less than the cost of a regular ticket, because they are able to balance the books by counting profit from the concession stand, and their cut of the ticket sold for your movie, as well as their own movies. You couldn't call it abuse of a monopoly, because there is clearly no monopoly in movie theaters. In fact, the competing Android chain is massive compared to the Apple one, since they operate through franchise agreements. But in spite of this size difference, and the competition with Apple's own movies, you consistently get more revenue back from distributing your movie in the Apple theater. People don't mind going through the front door - because they're a different clientele, attracted by the cleanliness of the auditoriums, the unobtrusive security, the efficiency of the cash registers, and the consistently better quality of the movies they see, thanks in no small part to Apple's own self-financed movies that are ostensibly competing directly with yours.
So here's the interesting question: Are those movies competing directly with yours? Hard to say. If you believe that a community has a fixed amount of money they will spend on movies, and the competition is only over who claims the larger slice of that pie, then yes. If you believe that a community's spending on movies is influenced in large part by the quality of their previous movie-going experiences, then - not exactly. There are interesting issues of supply versus demand going on here. The worst outcome would be if Apple financed really crappy movies, and then drove away their patrons (and yours) by overselling them, decreasing the size of the movie-going audience.
An interesting situation? Yes. Stiff c
Read between the lines and the real message here is that Apple Music is kicking Spotify's ass.
At last count, Spotify has 30 million subscribers to Apple Music's 15 million; and that's despite Apple Music recently being made available on Android. The lines pretty clearly indicate that Spotify is beating the shit out of Apple Music, whether you read on, over, under, or between them.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Your analogy fails too. Your analogy assumes that everyone can just pick and choose which theatre they want to goto when a better analogy would be that the consumers have already bought seats that cost hundreds of times more then the cost of viewing a movie and it is very impractical for consumers to purchase multiple seats to enjoy multiple theatres. These consumers are therefore locked into visiting one particular theatre so if you want to have your movie available to those locked-in consumers, you are at the mercy of the whims of the theatre owner.
Your Safeway analogy fails as well. Pasta sauce manufacturers use ingredients that are pretty much generic (a tomato from Bob's farm is pretty much the same as a tomato from Jill's farm). Music streaming services on the other hand are pulling from a limited source of "ingredients" (a song from Bob's band is not the same as a song from Jill's band) and are often fighting for exclusivity for each source. Let us say that 1c per subscription pays for one artist's music. An extra 300c is enough for 300 more artists which maybe the difference between having consumers want your service over another who has to pay you another 300c per subscriber to enter the market (on top of their own artist costs). The more subscribers you pull from your competition, the more money you have to sign exclusive deals with artists (you could even start offering double the money to steal artists away from competing services). Before you know it, you have signed all the artists that the competing services had and have stolen all their subscribers, all because you had the ability to add an extra 30% of their operating costs...
My question is, with Spotify, it appears that you pay for a subscription to listen to ad-free music on multiple devices (but only one device at a time). Why is Spotify not just pointing users to their website to pay for their subscription and just distributing the app as end point software and having the user login with their username and password. If the users are not paying through the app then Apple has no right at all to demand Spotify to use their payment services.
I assume nothing. I've done it on many occasions through many different mechanisms. Distributing applications is trivial. A mere web server can provide the same functionality that the App Store does. In fact, the App Store app basically just downloads the application package from a web server.... The iOS App Store, mind you, is insanely complicated, largely because WebObjects is, at this point, a steaming pile of legacy code with horrible limitations that they have to constantly hack around. IMO, it basically needs to be gutted and rewritten, but that's another rant for another day.
But the complexity of the store itself is almost entirely irrelevant to the question of whether distributing apps is complex in much the same way that saying that Amazon's website is complex is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether distributing books through bookstores is complex. Those are orthogonal. If you were distributing an app outside of the iOS App Store, you'd be using an ordinary web server, and discovery would be through Google. The only infrastructure from Apple that you'd be using would be the certificate signing machinery, where Apple signs your deployment cert (similar to the way Developer ID works on OS X). And everything would "just work", because under the hood is just basically an OS X Installer package (give or take).
Um... no, for many reasons:
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Your personal preference does not define the operation of the market. There have been many reasons for people to get "the same" content through different paid streaming services ever since the invention of the printing press.
"Sticking your software on a webserver" is equivalent to Apple's app store, for a developer? Sure...
And for a farmer, dumping your produce in a heap in the middle of a public park is the same as getting it onto supermarket shelves, and getting a check at the end of the month.
Your claim of equivalency just doesn't fly; and since the rest of your argument is built on it, that doesn't either.
Except for the part where you turn your own argument on its head by stating, "there are tens of thousands of different grocery stores, from large chains down to one-store shops. By contrast, there are basically only two viable mobile operating system platforms." I'm sorry; weren't you just saying an app store is the same as dumping your software on a website? By that score, there are an infinite number of them. But that's neither here nor there: If you want to make the (oft repeated) claim that "Apple has a monopoly on the Apple platform", as if that means something in ethical or legal terms, do please continue. :)
You're wrong on several counts, as I pointed out elsewhere. First, Apple has already been busted for antitrust violations, which means that yes, they do have a large enough position to be subject to antitrust limitations.
Second, you're assuming a fungibility of goods across ecosystems that does not exist. As an iOS user, I cannot simply download the Android version of the app and run it on my phone. Instead, I have to spend several hundred dollars on new hardware, and replace all of my existing software, which could potentially cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars more.
Third, the Sherman Antitrust Act is the foundation for a complex system of antitrust laws. It is not the only law. It is not even a tiny fraction of the statutory law and relevant case law involved in a situation like this.
And they can do that. That's fine. That doesn't change the fact that their own app doesn't pay those disproportionate fees in any meaningful way. In fact, Apple pays even less for distributing their own app, because it is bundled into OS updates instead of being a standalone download.
That also doesn't change the fact that the only reason for most of those operating costs for the store is that Apple chose to require distribution through only their store. They could have let developers distribute their apps on their own websites using the same signing scheme. And the notion that small developers can't afford a web server is laughable. Almost 100% of them already have a web server to advertise their apps anyway. Without that, nobody would ever find their app in the giant black hole that is Apple's iOS App Store. The App Store absolutely does not make apps discoverable. If anything, it hinders discoverability very badly, from what I've seen.
And the only reason updates are hard is because Apple has chosen to make it hard. Their software update mechanism talks only to their servers. It would take almost no additional effort to allow developers to put an extra URL in their Info.plist file where Apple's autoupdater could fetch the current version info, etc. for that app. Apple chose to use their store infrastructure for handling that metadata, but that was Apple's choice. They don't get extra brownie points for their store having to handle that extra download traffic unless they give app developers another option. Sorry, but no.
Similarly, Apple wasn't by any means the first to have a means for reviewing apps. Cnet and others have had similar services for arbitrary downloads since just about the dawn of time. Now to be fair, I'm not saying that I don't appreciate having a source where I can trust that all the apps are likely vetted. What I am saying is that having such a source does not require banning obtaining apps through any other sources as Apple has done. There's no benefit to that from my perspective as a user. For that matter, there's very little benefit to Apple doing the actual distribution of the apps at all, other than perhaps download speed. Again, Apple's choice, so they don't get brownie points for doing what they forced themselves to do through something that was entirely their own decision.
You're bordering on begging the question here.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
To answer your question: The argument is over whether Spotify is allowed to inform users of the app that they can get a paid subscription by going to a website. This is against Apple's rules because it circumvents their automated systems for getting a cut of subscription fees.
Spotify can easily go the route that a number of other subscription-based developers have: They can make the app _require_ a login as a subscribed user, before it provides any functionality - including even informing the user where to go to get the subscription. There is no "redirect" happening, since there is no sale being made in the context of the app (they must have a subscription beforehand). It's a technicality; it's Apple's attempt to split the difference because if they didn't draw an arbitrary line somewhere, all apps in the app store could just claim to be "subscription based" and redirect their users to some non-Apple payment service. Apple's store infrastructure would go from "paying for itself" to "huge financial drain" and the process of paying for things would become fragmented and less secure, and arguably more hazardous and complicated for iPhone owners.
I'm not sure what you have against pasta sauce makers... A tomato from "Bob's farm" can be markedly different from a tomato from "Jill's farm". Just because you think they're all the same, doesn't mean others do! And on the other side, have you listened to most of the new music of the last 20 years? No; no one has, because the market is freaking oversaturated with sound-alike indie bands making a race to the bottom in music fees so they can try and scrape up a living putting on shows. One streaming service is a heck of a lot more like any other streaming service, than one jar of pasta sauce is like the rest. :)
all fall within Apple Inc
No it does not, as e.g. many Laptops are crafted e.g. in Ireland by "Apple Ireland" etc. they are a sub company of Apple Inc. Same for plenty of other stuff. Otherwise the "tax avoidance schemes" we hear so often about would not be possible.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Still, almost nobody cares.
Apple always has been about driving out the little guy. In the GUI for example, they drove out all the smaller competitors, i.e. the GEM Desktop, in effect handing control to Microsoft. They don't mind being the minority in a market so long as they can charge their cult a significant premium.
In this music spat, Apple wants to make sure they get to charge a tax anytime anybody hears some music.
Aaaaah, Slashdot. :D
The answer is "it depends". For some random developer that nobody has ever heard, of, no it isn't. For somebody whose service is as well-known as Spotify, with an advertising budget as big as Spotify, etc., yes, it is. For the most part, people don't discover Spotify on the iOS App Store. They go explicitly to the iOS App Store to download Spotify because somebody told them about it.
If the iOS App Store did not exist, assuming the same code signing functionality did exist, and assuming Apple provided some mechanism whereby clicking on an app installer package in Mobile Safari would download it and install it, then the iOS App Store would provide no additional benefit to companies like Spotify beyond what a Google search would provide. It is just another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy between the developer and the customer.
You'll notice that Adobe provides almost all of their OS X software directly, rather than using the Mac App Store. You'll notice that BBEdit tried the Mac App Store and then left. So clearly, for many companies, sticking your software on a webserver is actually preferable to Apple's Mac App Store because there are fewer restrictions, you have more flexibility, and your customers can still get your content just as easily (at least on open platforms like OS X). You've offered me no reason to believe that the story would be different on mobile if Apple changed their policy to allow distribution of apps outside the iOS App Store.
Huh? Spotify et al are highly advertised businesses with well-known websites. They're the Internet equivalent of companies with their own storefronts. And yes, having your own storefront is the same as getting it onto supermarket shelves, assuming your customers know where to find you, and assuming that traveling to your own storefront isn't too burdensome. In fact, many people avoid the middlemen at farmers' markets every day, because they get better quality produce without the extra expense.
And obviously, the Internet is not equivalent to a physical presence, because I don't have to spend hours driving somewhere to get to your website. It is the great leveler, making it irrelevant whether a particular company's page is in Kansas or Uzbekistan. The entire notion of a centralized store as the sole means of getting apps onto a platform is completely and fundamentally antithetical to the decades of technological progress on which the Internet was built.
You're confusing two different stores on two different devices with two different content origin policies here. I was saying that on OS X, the app store provides no benefits over putting the app up on a website, and that on iOS, it would provide no benefit if it were possible to install iOS apps from websites.
The critical fact that you're apparently failing to grasp is that Apple actively prevents installing applications on iOS devices except through its own app store and has threatened legal action against anyone who has tried to circumvent that restriction. So no, those websites are clearly not competitors to the iOS App Store, because Apple has deliberately made it impossible for the device to obtain apps f
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yes, Apple conspired with five companies. However, those companies were their suppliers, not their competitors. It was not the size of those five companies that made it an antitrust violation, but rather the fact that Apple caused an illegal horizontal price fixing to occur. Notice that this was found to be illegal without any consideration of whether Apple is or is not a monopoly. In fact, you will notice that the word "monopoly" doesn't even appear in the court decision except for a passing mention of the word in the context of copyright providing publishers with an inherent monopoly on their own content (which goes without saying).
So as I said, Apple is large enough to have an effect on the market sufficient for antitrust laws to kick in, because as I said before, antitrust law violations do not require a monopoly or even a near-monopoly.
Actually, yes it does. You see, the iOS App Store is what is known in antitrust law as "tying". Apple explicitly prevents you from being able to buy apps for their devices except through them. This could be held to be per se illegal, as the purchase of an iPhone is essentially conditional on purchasing apps for it exclusively through Apple, but that's a somewhat challenging legal argument to make, as it would only be illegal if Apple had either a monopoly or a substantial amount of control over the app market as a whole. However, the cost of switching from one operating system to another does impact their control over the app market, so in that context, customers' choice to buy an iPhone could, in fact, factor into any decision about whether Apple has sufficient control over the market.
Secondarily, if Apple can exert sufficient influence on, for example, the market for streaming audio subscriptions, it can potentially be held unlawful under the rule of reason. That also does not require a monopoly. It merely requires the contract (in this case, the development agreement) to be a restraint of trade (and requiring the use of their payment service instead of a competitor most certainly is) that significantly impacts the viability of a market. And again, in that context, the cost of changing operating systems does factor in to how likely customers are to switch to Android to gain access to services like Spotify if Apple makes it impractical for them to continue doing business on iOS. So again, it could factor in.
Dude. I never said that CNet's site was the epitome of quality. I just said that other review sites do exist, and that there's nothing magical about Apple's ability to provide that service. If Apple hadn't done it for their mobile devices, somebody else inevitably would have, because inherent to the nature of the Internet is a rule that if there's a need, someone will eventually fill it.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
That would pretty much be suicide for Spotify. I'd imagine that most of their paid subscribers come from iOS. After all, iOS users tend to have more disposable income than Android users, and tend to spend considerably more on electronic goods and services.
Like it or not, Spotify has no choice but to have an iOS app available. They can choose to stop allowing in-app purchases, forcing users to figure out on their own how to buy subscriptions, but leaving the platform entirely would be a company-ending move.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Did you even RTFA? Spotify is attempting to remove the ability to subscribe to their service from the app altogether and Apple is bitching about not being able to get a cut. Never mind that Facebook, Amazon and Netflix, to name a few, don't have to abide by this non-existent rule that if you offer subscriptions you must offer the ability to subscribe in the app.
If the rule were non-existing, nobody would have to abide by it. Since it does exist, they do, including Facebook, Amazon and Netflix. And despite what Spotyfly thinks, so do they. The fact that the app currently on the app store violates the rule isn't a reason they should be allowed to break it in the future, it should be a reason to have it removed. Period.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
That would pretty much be suicide for Spotify. I'd imagine that most of their paid subscribers come from iOS. After all, iOS users tend to have more disposable income than Android users, and tend to spend considerably more on electronic goods and services.
Like it or not, Spotify has no choice but to have an iOS app available. They can choose to stop allowing in-app purchases, forcing users to figure out on their own how to buy subscriptions, but leaving the platform entirely would be a company-ending move.
If Spottyfly actually thought their users are too stupid to subscribe to their service, they probably would have a point. But what Spottyfly really is scared about is that using Apple's subscription service, it's far too easy to end an subscription you no longer want.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Not the in-app fee. No sane person would use in-app purchases anyone. But change the clause, that the possiblity to pay outside the app may not be advertised. For ALL apps.
And the paragraph about the artists is quite ironic, because spotify can pay the artists less, if apple wants its slice of the cake. Hey, there would be like 3 USD more (33%) for the artists, if it wasn't for apple.
Why is this modded down? Mod up for truth.
Strange calculation. You're implying, that apple pays the tech guys of spotify then.
If this was too short:
You tell me, apple uses the saved 30% to pay its tech guys, but they need to get 30% from spotify. This calculation is missing, that apple doesn't do the tech for spotify and the spotify programmers want to be payed as well (i.e. from the 30%).