Apple burns back on Spotify and disputes claim it is stifling innovation – BGR

Without doubt, Apple's launch of the App Store in 2008 changed forever the way we interact with our phones. The proposal made by the App Store at that time was incredibly convincing, provided developers were able to access the entire Apple iOS user base instead of a 30% cut on all earned revenue.

Since then, Apple has hidden more than $ 120 billion to developers, while earning a pretty penny for itself in the process. The mobile landscape in 2019, however, is much different than it was back in 2008. These days, developers are not so keen to give Apple 30% cut off the top, and some companies are talking about it. In addition, some companies are not so excited about how Apple manages the App Store in general.

To this point, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek published this week a blog post that launched Apple's App Store overview, claiming it puts third-party competitors in an uneven game room. In the blog post, a formal complaint followed Spotify made with the European Commission.

I have the post in part:

Apple requires Spotify and other digital services to pay 30% tax on purchases through Apple's payment system, including upgrading from Spring for free to our Premium service. If we pay this tax, it will force us to inflate the price of our Premium membership well over the price of Apple Music. And to keep our price competitive for our customers, there's nothing we can do.

In light of Ek's blog post, Apple today interrupted feedback. The core claims that Spotify is trying to enjoy all the benefits the App Store provides without compromising its own end.

Apple's answer is partly:

What Spotify is required is quite another. After using the App Store for many years to dramatically increase its business, Spotify seeks to retain all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem ̵[ads1]1; including the significant revenue it draws from the App Store customers – without contributing to that marketplace. At the same time, they distribute the music you love while making ever smaller contributions to artists, musicians and songwriters who make it – even go as far as taking these creators to court.

Spotify has every right to determine its own business model, but we feel obliged to respond when Spotify breaks its financial motivation into misleading rhetoric about who we are, what we have built, and what we do to support independent developers. musicians, songwriters and the creators of all stripes. [19659002] So we'll take up a few key points:

Spotify requirements we block access to products and updates to their app.

Let's remove this once right away. We have approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on behalf of Spotify, resulting in over 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app. The only time we've asked for adjustments is when Spotify has attempted to interfere with the same rules that every other app follows.
We have been working with Spotify frequently to help them bring their service to multiple devices and platforms:

• When we Spotify is deeply integrated into platforms like CarPlay, and they have told us they are working on it, and We are ready to help them wherever we can.
• Spotify is deeply integrated into platforms like CarPlay and you have access to the same development tools and resources that any other developer has.
• We found Spotify's Apple Watch requirement especially surprising. When Spotify submitted our Apple Watch app in September 2018, we reviewed and approved it with the same process and speed as we would any other app. The Spotify Watch app is actually the number 1 app in the Watch Music category.

Spotify is free to build apps for – and compete on – our products and platforms, and we hope they do.

Apple

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