Spotify wasn't allowing a creation of a free account that would provide the service. Instead, in their app, they were allowing the creation of a free account that would tell them where to buy the service. That's not how the App Store works.
Spotify needs to decide whether they want to provide an app that will work for customers who signed up completely independently, or whether to sell their subscriptions through the App Store and give Apple its cut. Those are the two alternatives, and it appears Apple is fine with either. If Spotify isn't, they can withdraw the app entirely. There are rules about using the App Store, which Spotify is not complying with.
The App Store is much more like a consignment store than a grocery store, so a consignment store that didn't allow people using its services to advertise in their shop how to get the stuff cheaper would be a better comparison.
It may be a guess, but it seems to me to be a lot more likely that Spotify tried to slide by the rules than that Apple bent theirs. In the articles that you read, where was the information coming from? It seems like the sort of thing that Apple might well not comment on but Spotify might well complain about.
And you have no idea what you're talking about. In order to understand the good qualities of something, you first need to admit that there might possibly be good qualities. You've picked on a couple of things and concluded that anyone who puts up with them is incredibly stupid.
You'll have a much better life if you learn something about understanding other people when they disagree with you.
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.
The other question is what business it is of yours? You might be curious, and that's fine, but Apple is free to run its business as it wants, within limits that I don't see have been violated. Apple is under no obligation to give special rates to anyone, and the 30% cut has been there since day one.
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.
The original Star Trek spirit doesn't sell anymore. Having the name squeezes a last few dollars out of the diehards, but the movies are not made to attract them.
The new Star Trek movies are a lot closer to Star Wars than old-fashioned Star Trek. I realized that when I saw the latest Star Wars.
Realistically, TOS wasn't all that good. There were a few really good episodes (I seem to be in a small minority by not considering "City on the Edge of Forever" (or whatever) as one of them, but what the heck), and a lot of bad episodes, more so in the third season. It was the ideas behind the series that made it Star Trek, and Abrams has ignored them.
If they cared about the original fan base, they'd have done a better job with the Abrams movies.
Seriously, the die-hard fans are going to get screwed, because they'll go to anything labeled Star Trek that has something to do with space travel or utopian societies. There's not much payoff in making stuff they want, because they'll pay money for the stuff they barely want.
If you want any sort of negotiating leverage in any sort of relationship, and fan-to-producer counts, you have to be able to walk away if the deal gets too bad. Go make up your own universe that resembles Star Trek in spirit. Don't go to bad Star Trek movies.
The casting ranges from decent to just plain bad. Part of Scotty's character was his physical presence, which the guy playing Scotty in the new movies completely lacks. Benedict Cumberbatch, for all of his excellent qualities as an actor, doesn't look like a eugenic superman and isn't very convincing in that role. Walter Koenig managed to make the original Chekhov work, and now we can appreciate that it wasn't easy.
Same with "good enough for the movies". I had a friend who worked in the Lucas empire, and he took us to lunch on Skywalker Ranch once. I've seen Luke's lightsaber and the Scarab of Ra. Compared to anything someone would try to merchandise, they were sloppily made.
Apple doesn't allow file sharing for security purposes. By restricting each app to its own space, it's easier to try to keep malware out of the system. You may or may not think this a good idea for you. If not, buy an Android.
I'm usually not the one on Slashdot defending the right of corporations to do whatever they want, but for some reason lots of people think Apple should be required to change their operations to help Spotify's business model.
So, what you're saying is that Apple should have to allow in-app purchases that they don't get a cut of? That they should provide a market for other companies for free?
Given the status quo before this, there was no requirement for Spotify users to buy their subscriptions through iOS. (As I understand it, it was possible to buy Spotify through a web store and use that account on iOS.) It was to Spotify's advantage to make it easy for people to buy subscriptions, and so they accepted Apple's rules for in-app purchases. Then Spotify decided they didn't want to pay what Apple wanted for access to Apple's market. I fail to see what's illegal about this. As far as I described it, it's all normal business.
Think of it this way. You buy a PS4 from Best Buy, and notice they sell games for it. You can buy them for what Best Buy charges, no problem. Now, you fire up your phone and check Amazon's prices and find you can get the games cheaper through Amazon. Sony finds out about this, and wants Best Buy to take a smaller cut of things sold in their store so Best Buy sells for the Amazon price, and Sony gets as much profit per sale. That seems to me to be a much better analogy.
Apple does not have a monopoly. They have competitors making good stuff in all of the markets they're in. If you don't like Apple, you are highly unlikely to find a killer app on iOS or OSX that keeps you using their stuff (unless it's iOS or OSX you want). The iOS App Store market plays by Apple's rules, which change slowly, and these rules are a perfectly legitimate reason for you to buy an Apple or a Samsung phone.
Apple does have the right to dictate whether some app or service can exist on iOS. If you don't like it, Samsung makes some very nice stuff with Android on it. In this case, Apple didn't ban Spotify; Spotify decided they couldn't make money following the same Apple rules they'd been following for years. Their decision.
A lot more maneuvers are illegal if you have a monopoly, which Apple doesn't have.
Except that Apple has very rarely had a monopoly, whereas Microsoft and Google have both had monopoly power. For the past thirty years or so, if you wanted to run a general business computer with a specialized application you almost certainly had to buy Microsoft. Google seems to have dominant power in search space at least in some places. If you don't like your Apple products, you can buy Android and MS Windows systems without any serious problems.
Apple has the right to set its own marketplace rules, and everyone else has the right to participate in it or not. App developers are perfectly free to develop for Android only (and Windows and/or Blackberry if they think it'll be worth it).
If you're writing apps to make money, and have any success at it, buying a Macbook and an iOS developer's license is a fairly minor expense. If you find it not worthwhile to spend a few hundred dollars a year (amortized) to sell an app on iOS, you're not successful.
What I don't really understand is why this is considered a dispute. It's a failure of two companies that previously had a business relationship failing to agree on terms to continue the relationship. A dispute would be if one side considered the other side to be violating the law or an agreement.
If you consider the people as adults, you'll realize that they go along with things or not for their own purposes. Apple has its own reasons for dealing as it does with Spotify's apps. Spotify has its own reasons for changing how it runs things on iOS. Each customer has their own reasons for moving to iOS, staying on iOS, or leaving iOS. The advantage of a competitive market is that things tend to adjust. If Apple made a bad decision, they'll sell less stuff. If Spotify made a bad decision, they'll make less money. If an individual customer makes a bad decision, well, it's their decision, and doesn't really matter for the marketplace.
So you're saying that Apple should act in a way compatible with Spotify's business model? Last I looked, no business had a right to make a profit, just a right to try.
If you own a profitable business, great. I'd bet you don't demand that other companies change things to your benefit without compensation.
Apple didn't give Spotify a choice other than: keep ripping off your customers for 20% of the profit a direct sale nets you, take an 18% loss, or leave.
Apple is willing to give Spotify the right to sell stuff in the Apple ecosystem, provided they get their cut. Apple is providing a service here, and deserves to get paid. Have you ever sold anything somewhere on consignment? Did you get the entire purchase price? If you put a sign on your stuff saying you had more cheaper at home, did that sign stay there?
Spotify might well think the price too high, but they have other venues to sell their services in, so they aren't being kept out of the market. Whether the price is too high or not is a matter of negotiation between Spotify and Apple, and it appears that they didn't come to an agreement. This happens all the time in business. If you are running a farmer's market and rent out booth space, I have no right to set up a booth if I'm not willing to pay what you ask.
Slashdot Mirror
Spotify wasn't allowing a creation of a free account that would provide the service. Instead, in their app, they were allowing the creation of a free account that would tell them where to buy the service. That's not how the App Store works.
Spotify needs to decide whether they want to provide an app that will work for customers who signed up completely independently, or whether to sell their subscriptions through the App Store and give Apple its cut. Those are the two alternatives, and it appears Apple is fine with either. If Spotify isn't, they can withdraw the app entirely. There are rules about using the App Store, which Spotify is not complying with.
The App Store is much more like a consignment store than a grocery store, so a consignment store that didn't allow people using its services to advertise in their shop how to get the stuff cheaper would be a better comparison.
It may be a guess, but it seems to me to be a lot more likely that Spotify tried to slide by the rules than that Apple bent theirs. In the articles that you read, where was the information coming from? It seems like the sort of thing that Apple might well not comment on but Spotify might well complain about.
And you have no idea what you're talking about. In order to understand the good qualities of something, you first need to admit that there might possibly be good qualities. You've picked on a couple of things and concluded that anyone who puts up with them is incredibly stupid.
You'll have a much better life if you learn something about understanding other people when they disagree with you.
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.
The other question is what business it is of yours? You might be curious, and that's fine, but Apple is free to run its business as it wants, within limits that I don't see have been violated. Apple is under no obligation to give special rates to anyone, and the 30% cut has been there since day one.
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.
The EU has taken action against Apple in the past. Have they shown any sign of taking any action against Apple over this?
Exactly what preferential treatment does Facebook get? AFAICT, the Facebook app conforms to Apple's rules. Where is the deviation?
Except that Apple's perfectly OK with a Spotify app as long as it conforms to the same App Store rules that every other app developer complies with.
The original Star Trek spirit doesn't sell anymore. Having the name squeezes a last few dollars out of the diehards, but the movies are not made to attract them.
The new Star Trek movies are a lot closer to Star Wars than old-fashioned Star Trek. I realized that when I saw the latest Star Wars.
Realistically, TOS wasn't all that good. There were a few really good episodes (I seem to be in a small minority by not considering "City on the Edge of Forever" (or whatever) as one of them, but what the heck), and a lot of bad episodes, more so in the third season. It was the ideas behind the series that made it Star Trek, and Abrams has ignored them.
If they cared about the original fan base, they'd have done a better job with the Abrams movies.
Seriously, the die-hard fans are going to get screwed, because they'll go to anything labeled Star Trek that has something to do with space travel or utopian societies. There's not much payoff in making stuff they want, because they'll pay money for the stuff they barely want.
If you want any sort of negotiating leverage in any sort of relationship, and fan-to-producer counts, you have to be able to walk away if the deal gets too bad. Go make up your own universe that resembles Star Trek in spirit. Don't go to bad Star Trek movies.
There's no real effect on the copyright. They have to defend the trademarks, in some form, but they could permit the fan fiction.
Really, if we had reasonable copyright laws, TOS would be out of copyright and people could make as much fan movies as they liked from it.
The casting ranges from decent to just plain bad. Part of Scotty's character was his physical presence, which the guy playing Scotty in the new movies completely lacks. Benedict Cumberbatch, for all of his excellent qualities as an actor, doesn't look like a eugenic superman and isn't very convincing in that role. Walter Koenig managed to make the original Chekhov work, and now we can appreciate that it wasn't easy.
Same with "good enough for the movies". I had a friend who worked in the Lucas empire, and he took us to lunch on Skywalker Ranch once. I've seen Luke's lightsaber and the Scarab of Ra. Compared to anything someone would try to merchandise, they were sloppily made.
Apple doesn't allow file sharing for security purposes. By restricting each app to its own space, it's easier to try to keep malware out of the system. You may or may not think this a good idea for you. If not, buy an Android.
I'm usually not the one on Slashdot defending the right of corporations to do whatever they want, but for some reason lots of people think Apple should be required to change their operations to help Spotify's business model.
So, what you're saying is that Apple should have to allow in-app purchases that they don't get a cut of? That they should provide a market for other companies for free?
What's illegal about it?
Given the status quo before this, there was no requirement for Spotify users to buy their subscriptions through iOS. (As I understand it, it was possible to buy Spotify through a web store and use that account on iOS.) It was to Spotify's advantage to make it easy for people to buy subscriptions, and so they accepted Apple's rules for in-app purchases. Then Spotify decided they didn't want to pay what Apple wanted for access to Apple's market. I fail to see what's illegal about this. As far as I described it, it's all normal business.
Think of it this way. You buy a PS4 from Best Buy, and notice they sell games for it. You can buy them for what Best Buy charges, no problem. Now, you fire up your phone and check Amazon's prices and find you can get the games cheaper through Amazon. Sony finds out about this, and wants Best Buy to take a smaller cut of things sold in their store so Best Buy sells for the Amazon price, and Sony gets as much profit per sale. That seems to me to be a much better analogy.
Apple does not have a monopoly. They have competitors making good stuff in all of the markets they're in. If you don't like Apple, you are highly unlikely to find a killer app on iOS or OSX that keeps you using their stuff (unless it's iOS or OSX you want). The iOS App Store market plays by Apple's rules, which change slowly, and these rules are a perfectly legitimate reason for you to buy an Apple or a Samsung phone.
Apple does have the right to dictate whether some app or service can exist on iOS. If you don't like it, Samsung makes some very nice stuff with Android on it. In this case, Apple didn't ban Spotify; Spotify decided they couldn't make money following the same Apple rules they'd been following for years. Their decision.
A lot more maneuvers are illegal if you have a monopoly, which Apple doesn't have.
Except that Apple has very rarely had a monopoly, whereas Microsoft and Google have both had monopoly power. For the past thirty years or so, if you wanted to run a general business computer with a specialized application you almost certainly had to buy Microsoft. Google seems to have dominant power in search space at least in some places. If you don't like your Apple products, you can buy Android and MS Windows systems without any serious problems.
Apple has the right to set its own marketplace rules, and everyone else has the right to participate in it or not. App developers are perfectly free to develop for Android only (and Windows and/or Blackberry if they think it'll be worth it).
If you're writing apps to make money, and have any success at it, buying a Macbook and an iOS developer's license is a fairly minor expense. If you find it not worthwhile to spend a few hundred dollars a year (amortized) to sell an app on iOS, you're not successful.
What I don't really understand is why this is considered a dispute. It's a failure of two companies that previously had a business relationship failing to agree on terms to continue the relationship. A dispute would be if one side considered the other side to be violating the law or an agreement.
If you consider the people as adults, you'll realize that they go along with things or not for their own purposes. Apple has its own reasons for dealing as it does with Spotify's apps. Spotify has its own reasons for changing how it runs things on iOS. Each customer has their own reasons for moving to iOS, staying on iOS, or leaving iOS. The advantage of a competitive market is that things tend to adjust. If Apple made a bad decision, they'll sell less stuff. If Spotify made a bad decision, they'll make less money. If an individual customer makes a bad decision, well, it's their decision, and doesn't really matter for the marketplace.
So you're saying that Apple should act in a way compatible with Spotify's business model? Last I looked, no business had a right to make a profit, just a right to try.
If you own a profitable business, great. I'd bet you don't demand that other companies change things to your benefit without compensation.
Apple could forbid anyone else from offering streaming music services through iOS. Would this be more competitive?
Apple is willing to give Spotify the right to sell stuff in the Apple ecosystem, provided they get their cut. Apple is providing a service here, and deserves to get paid. Have you ever sold anything somewhere on consignment? Did you get the entire purchase price? If you put a sign on your stuff saying you had more cheaper at home, did that sign stay there?
Spotify might well think the price too high, but they have other venues to sell their services in, so they aren't being kept out of the market. Whether the price is too high or not is a matter of negotiation between Spotify and Apple, and it appears that they didn't come to an agreement. This happens all the time in business. If you are running a farmer's market and rent out booth space, I have no right to set up a booth if I'm not willing to pay what you ask.