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Nice to finally get some insight as to the hangup on Spotify coming to the Apple TV. That's a big gripe of mine and only part of a reason why I recently bought a Roku 4 and displaced my Apple TV 4.

This is not unlike the issue with Amazon Prime on TVOS; a policy issue at Apple.

But what about AirPlay? Any viable workaround?
 
The core of the problem is that Spotify ultimately doesn't control its own platform. The biggest music streaming service in the world is ultimately just another app on my smartphone, and still had to play by another company's rules. I fail to see how this is Apple's fault, or what obligation Apple has to "play fair".
Just try Spotify already, you'll love it ;)
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Truth in advertising: Spytify.
Haha Apple paranoids, my fave.
 
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I agree with a lot of your points even though I prefer Spotify. You did however forget a major reality about the future of these music service models: lately Apple has tended to F things up more than give us what we want. Majority of people prefer Spotify as well it seems. That one I would also argue is a fact. I know you have an emotional attachment to your music collection already being with Apple, but from what I'm always reading on these forums and more interestingly in real life: people prefer Spotify.
As of now yes. which is why they're doing a complete overhaul of the app to be shown off next week. The fact Apple has gotten 13million + subscribers in one year is also very impressive.

But I will partially argue the point about Apple ***** things up. Yes they do sometimes and they tend to fix it over time (maps, music, mostly iCoud (vs MobileMe)). This year they will fix apple music and will probably be on track to surpass Spotify's subscriber base by next year sometime.

Honestly they don't need to do THAT much to make it a very solid Spotify competitor. Fix some annoying smaller bugs, clean up the "New" section, and make "For You" even better than it is. These are all rumored to happen.
 
Spotify practically operate at a loss - and let's not forget that Apple, one of the most profitable companies in the world, pay near-identical to Spotify's rates. So what does that say?
Pretty clear what it says to me: people on this site are armchair CEO's, talking as if reading a blog or some news articles is enough to understand the complex process that the music industry/business model is going through right now. Do me a favour, in the future(and you can probably do it looking into the past as well), notice that when people are TOO into something they start sounding a little.. oh you know. Most people that get too into something sometimes can take it too far. Take Apple purists for example, they won't give other things a chance but the worst is they can't just love what they have, they have to put the other thing down. They're the worst :p
 
Just try Spotify already, you'll love it ;)
I started with Spotify, then switched over to Apple Music because the latter has more of the Asian music that I like. Apple Music also has Siri integration, and is currently the only music service available on the Apple TV.

Apple Music won it for me due to Apple's control over its ecosystem.
 
Pretty clear what it says to me: people on this site are armchair CEO's, talking as if reading a blog or some news articles is enough to understand the complex process that the music industry/business model is going through right now. Do me a favour, in the future(and you can probably do it looking into the past as well), notice that when people are TOO into something they start sounding a little.. oh you know. Most people that get too into something sometimes can take it too far. Take Apple purists for example, they won't give other things a chance but the worst is they can't just love what they have, they have to put the other thing down. They're the worst :p

???

I reread your comment 3 times and I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest what you're trying to say.
 
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I started with Spotify, then switched over to Apple Music because the latter has more of the Asian music that I like. Apple Music also has Siri integration, and is currently the only music service available on the Apple TV.

Apple Music won it for me due to Apple's control over its ecosystem.
If Spotify really wants to amp things up they could do an Apple TV app. But I don't think anyone should hold their breath. They just now realized that a nav bar is important at the bottom, their iPad app is stuck in 2012 and they are operating at a loss.
 
If Spotify really wants to amp things up they could do an Apple TV app. But I don't think anyone should hold their breath. They just now realized that a nav bar is important at the bottom, their iPad app is stuck in 2012 and they are operating at a loss.

And yet they're willing to sell 3 month packages for 99 cents. Doesn't make good business sense if they're not doing well.
 
As of now yes. which is why they're doing a complete overhaul of the app to be shown off next week. The fact Apple has gotten 13million + subscribers in one year is also very impressive.

But I will partially argue the point about Apple ***** things up. Yes they do sometimes and they tend to fix it over time (maps, music, mostly iCoud (vs MobileMe)). This year they will fix apple music and will probably be on track to surpass Spotify's subscriber base by next year sometime.

Honestly they don't need to do THAT much to make it a very solid Spotify competitor. Fix some annoying smaller bugs, clean up the "New" section, and make "For You" even better than it is. These are all rumored to happen.
13 million subscribers, how many were because of having Apple Music (I say this half jokingly) shoved down their throat? They had the advantage of the music app already being on hundreds of millions of devices.

Maps being fixed? Come on. I mean I always thought the Apple Maps haters were a bit off but then I FINALLY gave Google Maps a try recently and I would never consider going back. The difference is huge between the apps. There's a reason people always say Google Maps is better, because it actually is. Us Apple fans just have to let go a bit and actually give it a fair trial which I stubbornly refused until recently. Music we've already debated and it's a complete joke: Beats acquisition? Wow. Radio 1 or whatever that crap is? Yes, that's what we wanted Apple. You know they're in LaLaLand when they actually devote such huge amounts of time in keynotes to that crap. iCloud is another one for me. I love/hate it. Really hope they make it faster, more useful/powerful and more intuitive and more synced. There's stuff that the basic Calender/Mail/Reminders apps do that makes me want to throw my phone out the window. It's 2016 and it just boggles my mind that their own stock apps are SO dumbed down. Not even that, they're not even visually/usefully coordinated between iCloud.com, my Macbook Pro and my iPhone.
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???

I reread your comment 3 times and I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest what you're trying to say.
Yea, me too :) Was just a ramble wasn't it? ;) I was taking your question: "So what does that say?" and I just ran with it. Probably slipped a bit, maybe fell... but I kept running!!
(Some good debates going on here, some people just taking their sides a little too strongly. As I'm sure I do as well)
 
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No worries — I'm happy to cite a few sources. The issue has been covered by many major media outlets.

Much of this came to light when David Lowery, frontman of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, brought a $120 million class-action lawsuit against Spotify late last year. Here's a Billboard story about it:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/b...ate-explains-150-million-class-action-spotify


Here's a brief story on Spotify's response to Lowery's suit:
http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/spotify-responds-to-david-lowerys-mechanicals-lawsuit/
Great links. They made me a little curious so I dug a little deeper. It seems this isn't a Spotify problem per se, but an industry problem. Specifically a problem in the US due to our systemic problems. It also seems that the Harry Fox Agency sits squarely at the intersection of this particular Venn.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/03/10/apple-music-admits-harry-fox-agency-is-incompetent/

Be sure to read the comment section. It's quite enlightening.

Hi there Japanime (pretty clever username by the way!),

Please don't feel I'm calling you out on what you're saying. I wasn't aware of what you've just mentioned. I've tried to have a look online but can't find any citations to indicate this. I was wondering if you could possibly direct me to an article about this?

It's not just Spotify. The problem japanime highlighted affects the streaming industry in it's entirety. Check the link I posted above. It's from March and has a slightly different take on the issue.
 
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No worries — I'm happy to cite a few sources. The issue has been covered by many major media outlets.

Much of this came to light when David Lowery, frontman of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, brought a $120 million class-action lawsuit against Spotify late last year. Here's a Billboard story about it:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/b...ate-explains-150-million-class-action-spotify

...

The first linked story you provided, I read and it says Spotify pays royalties already but this David Lowery is complaining Spotify doesn't have a "mechanical license". What is that? And why are other artists not complaining about mechanical licenses?
 
Spotify practically operate at a loss - and let's not forget that Apple, one of the most profitable companies in the world, pay near-identical to Spotify's rates. So what does that say? I'm not sure what the cut-off point is of being unreasonable.?

From what I gather, it's Spotify's free tier which is the cause of their losses. Apple has no free tier, so it should eventually turn a profit, assuming it isn't already doing so now.
 
And yet they're willing to sell 3 month packages for 99 cents. Doesn't make good business sense if they're not doing well.

Spotify’s business acumen is: outside investments and growth. That’s their only answer to eventual sustainability. In their favour, the cost per user has dropped significantly over the years.
 
Spotify’s business acumen is: outside investments and growth. That’s their only answer to eventual sustainability. In their favour, the cost per user has dropped significantly over the years.

Will investors keep throwing money at them if they keep losing money, though?
 
I started with Spotify, then switched over to Apple Music because the latter has more of the Asian music that I like. Apple Music also has Siri integration, and is currently the only music service available on the Apple TV.

Apple Music won it for me due to Apple's control over its ecosystem.
I will admit not having an Apple TV app sucks pretty bad. Also missing Siri integration does suck. If they can clean the app up maybe I'll go back to it...
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Just left Spotify for Apple Music. Just saying.
Just saying what? What was your reason?? Someone else brought up awesome points. Apple TV app and Siri integration. Those 2 alone are 'almost' enough for me to get me back. But I need something else, just not sure what... just one more thing.
 
Will investors keep throwing money at them if they keep losing money, though?

Who knows, I’m not an investor and I don’t know how they tick. I think Spotify’s biggest threats are the class actions, the fickle relationship with music labels (which don’t like the freemium model) and a stalling growth. Spotify still has the largest user base by far, especially paying customers.
 
Who knows, I’m not an investor and I don’t know how they tick. I think Spotify’s biggest threats are the class actions, the fickle relationship with music labels (which don’t like the freemium model) and a stalling growth. Spotify still has the largest user base by far, especially paying customers.

I think their biggest threats are huge companies that can have music be a loss until it isn't. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and so forth can wait it out until streaming hits the number it needs. Spotify cannot. Spotify needs streaming to be profitable today.
 
And yet they're willing to sell 3 month packages for 99 cents. Doesn't make good business sense if they're not doing well.
They did that last summer as well. Its a tactic to hook people in. As is Apple's 3 months for free. And if you do some research you find out Spotify is losing money, slowly but still losing money.
 
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We've agreed too much lately, so I'm happy we can finally disagree on something.:D You're applying blanket privacy logic while ignoring the context of Spotify's (and other app devs) issues. This has nothing to do with, and is nothing like that, incorrect btw, claim of Google selling data.

This is about having the ability to improve services for customers who chose to use the devs apps. If devs have no visibility to their customers, then they're guessing at what's right, what's wrong, and what needs to change. What dev doesn't need to know about customer churn? What dev wouldn't want to show appreciation to loyal customers? Myriad other reasons why knowledge your customer base is essential to staying relevant and actually making money. Make no mistake, when you choose to purchase an app you are that dev's customer as well. Would you not want their products to improve? Hyperbolic --> Nobody wants the App Store to get as bad as MAS. Besides, this isn't a binary situation like: Gimme all the informations or gimme none of the information. Allowing devs to improve their offerings benefits all concerned: Apple, the dev, and most importantly, the customer.

To use privacy as some type of clarion call against information sharing is short sighted in my opinion. None of companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, or Spotify sell customer data. I wish people would stop with this. They all collect customer data to, according to every single one of their privacy policies, help improve their products, services, and advertising; among other things.
Wow, nice to see such a strongly worded disagreement :)

As I said in my original post, developers should work with apple to get better insight. I am all for that. I also think that developers should have the ability to respond to reviews like they do on Amazon. I am not for developers knowing my name, my email, my birthdate, or any other PII. If they want that, they can force the user to log into their app and then the user can decide if they want to provide an email to log in. Read the privacy info for facebook and google. Unless you explicitly opt out, they do share your email and other PII with other vendors (facebook by far is the worst). I prefer an opt in policy, such that no developer gets my PII unless I give permission. I understand that it makes it more difficult (but not impossible) for developers to gain insight for their app, but given the world today, I think that it is appropriate. And in any case, since this is true for all apps in the appstore, it is a level playing field. It is tough for everyone and developers can and should work to find alternatives approaches. So you know, I work in business intelligence so this is an area that I am particularly well informed on. I know how to track you through so many other ways.
 
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