Seems like a no-brainer for Spotify to just accept the new terms, pay Apple the €0.50 Core Technology Fee, and distribute the app outside the App Store. They could even raise the price by €0.50 to compensate and I doubt anyone would bat an eye. Of course, then they'd lose the talking point against Apple, which seems to be Spotify's main goal at this point.
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Spotify and Apple Again Clash Over App Store Rules and Fees
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But the cost of Spotify is the subscription. If Apple didn't charge for subs, every app on the Store would be free with IAPs and Apple would make literally nothing.
What is with this weird sentiment that Apple like owns us or something.
Spot-On... pardon the pun. This would work and we all could move one. Of course. Ek has an out-sized ego as do many others so its better to fight.
Verizon doesn’t develop the tools and APIs Spotify uses to build its app, Apple does. Without those tools and APIs the Spotify app couldn’t exist. It costs Apple a lot of money to design, develop, and maintain those APIs. Apple doesn’t think companies like Spotify should get to use the tools Apple creates for free. Spotify thinks they should be able to force Apple to give them those tools without paying anything. Spotify is wrong.
Frankly, as I'm reading this, this is really snarky on the part of Apple.
Seriously. Apple doesn't have the inherent right to tax everything used by the device. If an app wants to have a link to an external payment system, this should be allowed. It should not, in turn, require an agreement that also, in turn, requires taxation for use of that link.
Seriously. Apple doesn't have the inherent right to tax everything used by the device. If an app wants to have a link to an external payment system, this should be allowed. It should not, in turn, require an agreement that also, in turn, requires taxation for use of that link.
Isn’t it interesting how this wasn’t an issue and became an issue over time? I think, like most things, companies in the EU figured that some thing that Apple did would be followed by some “open” competitor, possibly Android, and then all the companies would buy into that one. What they’ve found is that people on Android on the whole don’t want to deal in any kind of digital business. For whatever reason. Meanwhile, Apple has steadily been working on a smaller group of people that ARE comfortable with doing business digitally.
It was after alll these years where companies realized that no other vendor is catering to folks with money as much as Apple was, that they decided to change the makeup of the structure of the mobile business in the EU such that iPhones make up more of the phones AND the terms on the iPhone become more acceptable to those countries. It’s no mistake that, after they’ve been pinging on Apple, now they pass a rule which essentially means “fewer non-iPhone devices in the EU”. Yes, Apple’s business in the near term has been altered and they’re having to spend money they didn’t expect to spend to meet these regulations, but, in the end, the EU companies get what they want, a larger, more vibrant mobile economy made up of those that will do business digitally… and, Apple for their efforts are going to get a much larger share of the EU market.
It was after alll these years where companies realized that no other vendor is catering to folks with money as much as Apple was, that they decided to change the makeup of the structure of the mobile business in the EU such that iPhones make up more of the phones AND the terms on the iPhone become more acceptable to those countries. It’s no mistake that, after they’ve been pinging on Apple, now they pass a rule which essentially means “fewer non-iPhone devices in the EU”. Yes, Apple’s business in the near term has been altered and they’re having to spend money they didn’t expect to spend to meet these regulations, but, in the end, the EU companies get what they want, a larger, more vibrant mobile economy made up of those that will do business digitally… and, Apple for their efforts are going to get a much larger share of the EU market.
Ah! Spotify may not pay your ISP for what you stream, but they are paying an ISP somewhere for their data upload that you are streaming. Someone somewhere is making money while someone else is handing that money over for a service.
Spotify could in theory never pay Apple a dime for Apple’s IP by developing a web app for iPhone. Yet, for some reason they choose to whine and complain then use a a free option.
They didn’t. The mall in the analogy is not your iPhone, it’s the APIs and developer tools that Spotify uses to build their app so it can run on your iPhone. Apple builds those and lets developers use them to make apps with the understanding that there is a fee involved. Spotify wants to get access to those tools without paying anything for them.
No, because the app only requires you to log in. It's cosmically dumb how this has evolved.
Services work around this external-payment-system and apple-tax problem by simply having their services be login only and not have any payment processing within the app. It's a dumb client at that point.
Companies like Spotify have kind of forced Apple's hand (via the EU) to shine a spotlight on just how cosmically dumb that is. App vendors shouldn't be forced to use Apple's payment processing on the app, thus in turn allowing Apple to take a cut of that money. External payment processing does exist, but simply removed by Apple policy under the limp stance of "protection".
That's correct. So why doesn't Spotify do the same? It's the largest music streaming app on the planet just as Netflix is the biggest movie/TV streamer.
In the same vein, I don’t see why game developers should need to pay Sony and Nintendo anything, given that I have already paid these companies for their hardware and officially licensed accessories. If you argue that the consoles are too cheap, then raise the price and sell them at a premium like what Apple has done.
After all, consumers are not going to care about a 30% tax they will never see.
They think they deserve it but these consoles would be nothing with the rest of the world either.
This absurd entitlement is contrary to the anti-steering mandate, and all consumers should support Spotify's efforts to challenge it.
Meanwhile Phil Schiller thinks you're all morons:
9to5mac.com
Meanwhile Phil Schiller thinks you're all morons:
Schiller doesn't know whether the App Store is profitable; no notes
Phil Schiller has told a court in an antitrust case that he doesn’t know for sure whether the App Store...
9to5mac.com
I’m not sure why so many are conflicted as to why Apple wants a piece of the pie. To put it simply, iPhone purchases and App Store revenue fund the following: Silicon, device hard costs, device development, free services and SDK/software development.
Apple feels the purchase of your device doesn’t cover the bill for all of these. So some of it is paid through the App Store commission.
Most likely, Apple sees the App Store revenue as the revenue to pay for SDK and iOS development. These come to the user for free, and the SDK, Swift, iOS and all those bits are for the developer to leverage. These are all tools developers commonly use to make their apps. They ensure apps stay compatible with a range of OSes and devices that would otherwise be difficult to implement.
This model doesn’t have to be right or wrong, but it is Apple’s. No one should dictate how Apple models their business or how much they ask for it.
To be honest, as someone else said, it is my opinion that at the minimum Apple should be allowed to charge something just for creating a device and OS that connects developers instantly with so many consumers.
Alternatively, I feel Spotify should be allowed to make an app that uses zero Apple SDKs or support and allow that to be done for free. But we all know how that would likely work out.
Apple feels the purchase of your device doesn’t cover the bill for all of these. So some of it is paid through the App Store commission.
Most likely, Apple sees the App Store revenue as the revenue to pay for SDK and iOS development. These come to the user for free, and the SDK, Swift, iOS and all those bits are for the developer to leverage. These are all tools developers commonly use to make their apps. They ensure apps stay compatible with a range of OSes and devices that would otherwise be difficult to implement.
This model doesn’t have to be right or wrong, but it is Apple’s. No one should dictate how Apple models their business or how much they ask for it.
To be honest, as someone else said, it is my opinion that at the minimum Apple should be allowed to charge something just for creating a device and OS that connects developers instantly with so many consumers.
Alternatively, I feel Spotify should be allowed to make an app that uses zero Apple SDKs or support and allow that to be done for free. But we all know how that would likely work out.
This is their entire model. Who cares if that’s how they do it? It’s their business. A lot of people would feel more comfortable buying a $500 console and 10 $50 games slowly, then an $800 console and 10 $20 games. It’s a carefully curated system.
And just as I said previously, in your example, the console creators create the OS and dev kits that allow game developers to bring their product to millions effortlessly and lower development time thanks to their OS, SDKs and architecture and hardware that guarantees uniform performance for all. They should be allow to charge for it.
This is one situation where we're going to find out exactly how the EU really intended this law to be applied.
All of this is related to some other players ganging up on Apple
For example: Epic's major backer is Tencent. They have a 40% stake of Epic in all of this. For Spotify it's only 9.1% of shares. TenCent is a comparable to Spotify in value.
Tencent now controls 10% of Universal, 9% of Spotify… and nearly 2% of Warner Music Group - Music Business Worldwide
Second SEC filing shows Tencent did indeed splash out $200m on Warner shares on June 3…
When you consider the 18% stake of the EU marketplace for Apple Music all these companies are only after the monetary gain of making Apple look bad.
Same thing here. It’s Apple’s business model, and that’s how they have chosen to do it, and I don’t see anything wrong with it.
Should Apple not be allowed to charge developers a single cent even on software downloaded to a $400 iPhone SE or an iPod touch or the 9th gen iPad? You speak as though every single smartphone sold by Apple costs over $1000.
And fired 1500 staff and now are facing issues because the CEO is so out of touch he didn't know what that staff did.
I see it, some app subscription cost more on iOS than Android counterpart. Therefore, the real Apple Tax is here and people should care about it.
You are not forced to use an Apple product. If one feels it's a better experience on Android while also saving 30% on a subscription then switch. Consumers have choices. There's a price-point for everyone.
Replace Spotify with McDonald's, Starbucks, Uber, Amazon, Netflix, Target, Walmart, etc. They're all on the App Store and they don't pay Apple anything beyond the Developer Fee just like Spotify.
Perhaps McDonald's, Starbucks, Uber, Amazon, Target, Walmart, and everyone else should be removed from the App Store.
Spotify is so bad. They still don’t use Airplay 2. It’s 2024 what is the hold up for?