Spotify lashed out against Apple and the AppStore policies, namely the Apple tax. There are more claims, really venting about the app experience on iOS as well as conflict in competition.
They are not alone. BaseCamp generated buzz about Apple's AppStore practices when it's Hey.com app was rejected.
Collectively the Spotify claims point out major issues not only with Apple's AppStore, but mobile app store distribution issues.
Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm. Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm. Spotify is the world’s biggest music streaming platform by number of subscribers. Users of the service simply need to register to have access to one of the biggest-ever collections of music in history, plus podcasts, and other audio content. It operates on a freemium model. Free Spotify access comes with lower sound quality, and advertisements, and requires an internet connection.
- In particular, Spotify took issue with Apple taking a 30% cut of subscription revenue from apps operating in Apple's App Store. The cut required Spotify to charge more to make the same amount of.
- Spotify, which has also faced off with Apple over Apple's App Store policies and fees, today weighed in on Epic Games' fight with Apple over Fortnite's removal from the App Store.
Spotify has made a dedicated website to express their arguments call Time to Play Fair.
The store model is not favorable to the businesses developing native apps and many are questioning if they really need applications as more and more are migrating their client strategies to progressive web applications.
'In recent years, Apple has introduced rules to the App Store that purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience—essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers.' Daniel Ek
According to research done by the New York Times Ek and Spotify are not the only company hurt by Apple's App Store practices. The study shows that since Apple began placing its own apps in the App Store Apple has dominated many of the most popular search terms. What's worse is the search results have been stacked with Apple apps not related to the search intent.
But as Apple has become one of the largest competitors on a platform that it controls, suspicions that the company has been tipping the scales in its own favor are at the heart of antitrust complaints in the United States, Europe and Russia.
New York Times
Let me list Spotify's claims:
- 30% Purchase Tax
- Limiting Communication with Users that Pay Outside the AppStore
- Blocking Experience Enhancing Upgrade
- Routinely Blocking Application Updates
- Locking Competitors out of Siri, HomePod, and Apple Watch
- Apple Customers Do Not Have A Payment Choice
Apple released a response to Ek's claims, which of course denies everything.
'At its core, the App Store is a safe, secure platform where users can have faith in the apps they discover and the transactions they make. And developers, from first-time engineers to larger companies, can rest assured that everyone is playing by the same set of rules. ' - Apple
I am not someone who knows the details of the interactions between Apple and Spotify. So I can't speak to the availability of the platform features and what payouts the services make to the artists.
I do know more and more application brands are phasing out their dependence on app stores and migrating to a PWA strategy. Netflix fired a brutal punch to Apple over Christmas when they pulled the ability for new subscriptions to use Apple as a payment service.
Netflix earned over $850M in subscriptions via the AppStore in 2018, generating between $130 and $260M for Apple. In fact subscription services like Netflix and Spotify generate a significant amount of AppStore revenue, approximately $3.7B from the top 10 apps to be fair.
The disagreement only heightens the appeal progressive web applications have, even on iOS, where support is still somewhat limited.
I am receiving an increasing number of inquiries about replacing native apps with PWAs. Many fear issues highlighted by Spotify's claims. Others have either suffered a '4.2.6' removal or denial.
The more I discuss the merits of progressive web applications over native apps with clients and potential clients I have formulated a simple way to determine if you should develop and ship a mobile app:
'Does your app help sell iPhones or generate significant store revenue for Apple?'
If your answer is yes then you should think about developing an app. Otherwise a progressive web app is probably your better choice.
Why Hasn't Spotify Gone to a Progressive Web Application?
If you are wondering, Spotify offers a progressive web application option. Why they don’t use this as there primary path to ‘install’ their experience I don’t know.
Traditionally brands were trained to think consumers want apps over web-based experiences.
This fails to account for current trends. The web has caught up to native applications in feature parity for just about everything. For a music-based application like Spotify all the pieces are in place to be a web-based experience that matches their current native application.
We also know that consumers are tired of mobile apps. Today no one downloads apps anymore. Sure there are app downloads, but by and large the fad has ended. Most app downloads are to new phones, ‘restoring’ a user’s existing apps.
Outside of frivolous games native apps have simply fallen out of favor by most.
For established brands, like Spotify, have a large base of customers using their existing app. It will be difficult to wean them off the native app to the PWA solution.
Ultimately this means they have to weigh the costs and benefits for maintaining native apps, with the AppStore tax against potential customer churn in changing their interface to the web.
Right now there are many large brands taking that journey. Uber, Lyft, Twitter and others are in the process of moving to a progressive web app solution. Most have PWAs with feature parity to their native apps. They typically have moved to a PWA as the client code base and use a hybrid wrapper like Cordova to put the solution in the store.
This is the problem when you chose to go the way of a closed solution, native apps over an open solution, web. While native apps certainly were popular years ago, that has run its course and now presents an impediment to growing a profitable business.
Why Doesn't Spotify Eliminate AppStore Payments?
I can't speak for Spotify, but I would do exactly what Netflix did.
ApplePay is just one payment provider. The web has been monetized for 25+ years. I have built numerous sites with real-time credit card, ACH, PayPal and other payment providers.
Today the options have increased even more with cryptocurrencies and other more modern methods.
The Payment Request API make this integration and experience even easier. You can even make yourself a payment provider with the new Payment Handler API.
For the record Safari does support the Payment Request API and you can use ApplePay in the other browsers as well as Android Pay and Microsoft Pay.
The ability to receive money online are easier than ever, even on a website. Mobile apps do not have a monopoly on montetization.
And here is the thing, credit card transactions cost less than 3%, even for the more expensive providers. Generally the transaction fee is 1-2.5%.
This is much, much lower than the 30% Apple takes when someone buys a digital good or service through your app.
This is something I have never understood, why would any business be happy with a third party taking a 30% cut of their pre-tax revenues?
Apple's tax laws are 30% of all sales, except for subscriptions. The first year of a subscription has the 30% penalty, it then drops to 15%. The fee only applies to digital goods purchased through the app, not physical goods.
Does Apple really offer that much value? Could these businesses succeed through the web?
I say of course they could.
Paul Thurrott recently made a good point about IAP and Apple's policies after Apple blocked Hey.com's new app.
'This would be acceptable if Apple allowed app makers to use other IAP payment systems, which they do not, or if Apple even allowed app makers to just communicate that they could pay this fee on the Basecamp website. But they don’t even allowthat. And that, of course, is where Hey 1.0.1 ran afoul of Apple’s incredibly tone-deaf policies: Basecamp had the temerity to put a note in its own app explaining that users could go to the web and pay there instead.'
- Paul Thurrott
A Quick Review of AppStore Revenues - Who Actually Makes Money?
Apple and Google makes billions through their mobile app stores. There is no denying the revenue amounts.
Sensor Tower seems to be the consensus reporting service when it comes to app popularity and revenues. So I will use their numbers as examples.
Lets start with the subscription apps like Spotify, which by the way is not in the top 10, so I could not find actual revenue numbers.
I already shared the estimated $850M Netflix made last year. Here is a list of the top 10 subscription based services iOS revenues from 1/2018-11/2018 (so not including December revenues):
- Hulu $132.2M
- QQ $159.7M
- YouKu $192.9M
- Pandora $225.7M
- YouTube $244.2M
- Kwai $264.5M
- Tinder $462.2M
- Tencent $490.0M
- Netflix $790.2M
Notice how half of these apps are Chinese?
I should also not that Tinder has released a PWA which is getting great engagement. I expect them to start phasing out their app like other platforms soon.
Tinder is also the only non-media streaming app. Mac 10.11 0 download. If you look at the top dating apps the next 4 account for $235M.
These 10 apps account for about 10% of the overall AppStore revenues, which speaks volumes to me.
Note this list does not include the Major League Baseball package, which I also know drives millions in revenue each season. But the point is streaming subscription services account for a large percentage of Apple's revenue.
Mobile games account for 77% of app store revenues, about $55 billion. That leaves about $16.6 billion for other apps. A large chunk of that is subscription services.
For the record games account for the majority of app downloads too.
So if you are making a game, then mobile apps are probably a reasonable avenue.
A recent stat shared on CNBC says Apple claims to have generated $155 trillion USD in sales since AppStore creation. That is distributed among 23 million developers. This means the average developer has earned around $6700 over the last decade.
That is not much at all. Of course we know the bulk of the revenue was earned by the top 1% or so applications. We know very few apps are downloaded and even fewer used more than once. Hence 1% or fewer actually earn revenue.
Apple's Advantage Against Competition
![Spotify vs app store app Spotify vs app store app](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134072928/376311605.png)
Another argument Spotify makes against Apple is their distinct advantage over competition like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, etc. These non-Apple services have to pay the Apple tax, and Apple does not. This means Apple is immediately more profitable than the competition can hope to be.
The other advantage is Apple can hold up their application updates, deployments and of course access to undocumented APIs. I can't say if Apple has restricted access to APIs or not, so I wont comment much on that. But I could see them doing this, others have in the past.
I do know Apple does create lots of frustration and friction for deploying apps to the store. This includes new applications and updates.
The 4.2.6 rule gives them free range to almost 'randomly' reject any app anytime they feel like doing so. Personally I think they made the rule intentionally vague so they could create artificial interference with apps they just don't like.
Of course Apple claims they create a safe, trusted environment for their customers, etc. The web is a safe place. One of the reasons web standards take so long to bake and implement is the fight for secure implementations. So I don't see any real 'security' advantage native apps have over the web.
Here's the thing.
Should you outsource the control of your app or your business to a third party like this? It is not always clear, but in most cases no. There is too much to risk.
What if they cut you off, without warning?
You're done.
And Apple does have a history of doing just that.
But they can also make it difficult for you to even deploy updates. I know I have spoken to numerous developers and companies since the AppStore was created lament the fact that even under perfect circumstances it takes 2 weeks to get an update deployed to fix a bug.
Blocking updates is another major aspect of Spotify's complaints. I know they are not alone, I talk to app owners all the time that express frustration with long update cycles and rejections. It is a trail of frustration for many.
On the web, you find a bug, fix it and deploy an update as fast as you can. That could literally be a couple of minutes to just under an hour if you have your ducks in a row, and it is not a major bug of course.
I know some sites update 1500 or more times a day. Try that with your native app.
Apple Responds, but Doesn't Provide a Good Argument
Apple has stepped up its public response to Spotify by posting its own page on the controversy.
In this response Apple claims it owns the store and puts forth the effort to only have high quality apps that are safe and secure.
https://energyexperience580.weebly.com/blog/studio-one-4-guide. I have no issue with the notion of safe, secure and protecting privacy. The web has all that as well, so the AppStore has no advantage here.
The real problem lies in their ambiguous App Store Review Guidelines. Of course, in those guidelines they specific an app must be ‘app-like’. This is where they reserve judgement to kick any app they simple do not like.
In their principles and practices response Apple also proudly shares the fact they reject an average of 40,000 app submissions and updates each week. That is 40% of the weekly app submissions.
They also field over 1000 appeals for rejections or removals.
Compare this to the web which allows unlimited deployments a day. https://fittiy.weebly.com/blog/spotify-free-mini-google-home. Some applications update as many as 1500 times a day.
Deploy a bug, it sucks, but I can quickly fix and redeploy. Sometimes these updates can deploy within minutes.
Good luck doing that with Apple in the way. Developers I speak with tell me they expect 2-4 weeks before bug deployments are actually released in the store.
Not to mention you are subject to the Apple censors to determine if your app is worthy of being presented to consumers. They really do not believe in consumer choice, it is their choice to determine what is best for the consumer.
On top of that they make it difficult to compete with the apps that ship with the iPhone and iPad.
Summing It Up
I get why Spotify has filed a complaint. I don't like they decided to get a government entity involved to fight their battle.
They and other streaming services should be brave enough to follow Netlix's lead and just abandon app store payment as an option.
Spotify should also start an aggressive path toward becoming a progressive web application. I realize there may be a technical hurdle for now preventing a good mobile experience, but that can be overcome with some effort. This is one of the very, very few edge cases where an app is limited to native. 99% aren't.
The video streaming services don't really need native apps. So for now Netflix and other video streaming services have the freedom to migrate from their native apps and the restrictions imposed by the stores.
Audio services are still at a disadvantage until we get a supported API to allow audio to play after the lock screen engages.
This is a great opportunity and incentive for Spotify, Pandora, Audible, Stitcher and other audio services to join the W3C working groups and help define a specification to allow audio to play as a background service in the browser.
Spotify is not profitable at the moment and at a disadvantage on iOS because Apple does not have the 30% tax imposed on themselves.
But that is Apple's prerogative, it is their platform they can do what they want. By supporting a common standard on the web Spotify could move away from Apple's platform and maybe force Apple to add support for a great new capability.
![Spotify Spotify](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134072928/197663967.png)
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© Provided by What Hi-Fi? nullThe way we consume music has evolved dramatically over the past 50 years.
One of the biggest changes is the shift from ownership of physical – and latterly digital – music (remember Steve Jobs pulling 1,000 songs out of his pocket in 2001?) to streaming; playing songs in real-time from a library in the ether.
Streaming has in some ways provided a huge boost to the music industry, offsetting the decline in sales of physical formats and reshaping the way music is packaged, distributed and consumed.
According to global music industry representative IFPI, by the end of 2019, streaming accounted for more than half (56.1 per cent) of global recorded music revenue for the first time.
It is the industry’s fastest-growing revenue source, with 89 per cent of music-lovers across the globe listening to music through on-demand streaming, and 54 per cent of 35 to 64-year-olds using a streaming service in the past month – up eight per cent on figures taken 12 months previously.
MORE:
The state of play
There are plenty of streaming services vying for your attention: Deezer, Google Play Music, Primephonic, Amazon Music Unlimited, and YouTube Music to name a few.
Tidal, with its CD-quality lossless streaming tiers, has made ripping CDs a thing of the past, while Qobuz’s Sublime+ subscription offers hi-res downloads too.
But the biggest two by far are Spotify and Apple Music. Since 2008, Spotify has been at the forefront of streaming.
As one of the longest-running and most subscribed-to services, its dominance has seen many rivals fall by the wayside. But Spotify arguably faces its biggest threat yet from Apple Music (previously Beats Music until Apple acquired it in 2014).
Here, we compare the two giants to see which most deserves your money.
MORE: Best music streaming services 2020: free streams to hi-res audio
Subscription plans
If you don’t have the extra cash to splash on streaming, then Spotify should probably be your go-to service.
Staying true to its “music for everyone” ethos, it is one of the few to offer a free (ad-supported) subscription tier alongside its Premium service.
The desktop version is pretty unrestricted in terms of search and stream options, and while free users on the mobile app could previously only listen to playlists in shuffle mode rather than specific tracks and were limited to six song-skips per hour, Spotify updated the app in 2018 to allow free users unlimited listening to as many as 750 tracks across 15 top playlists every month (including Discover Weekly), equating to about 40 hours of music playback.
Of course, there are adverts, and the data rate is capped at 160kbps, but the service is free, so it'd be churlish to complain.
The majority of Spotify’s 100 million active users settle for the free tier but, as the 140 million who now subscribe to the paid-for Premium service can vouch for, there’s plenty of reason to shell out: 320kbps streams, offline listening, Spotify Connect support, search and skip tracks on mobile devices, and no adverts.
Apple Music doesn’t have a free tier, although there is a three-month free trial and you don’t need to be a member to listen to Beats 1 radio – one of the service’s most celebrated features.
For online and offline streaming and access to more radio stations, the monthly fee is also £10 ($10) (or £5 ($5) for the student membership).
Apple Music may have arrived late to the party, but it did so with a huge fanfare. While it may currently have around half the number of paying subscribers as Spotify (68m by the end of 2019, according to German statistics portal, Statista), the fact that it has skyrocketed to that in just over five years is staggering.
Now that Spotify has revised the initial monthly £30 cost of its Family Plan, both services now offer £15 ($15) family membership covering up to six users. Recently, Spotify also launched a £12.99 ($12.99) Duo membership too, for couples.
**Winner** Spotify
Catalogue
It’s a pretty even match when it comes to catalogue size and platform support.
Apple Music claims over 60m tracks in its back catalogue, while Spotify's figure is 50m songs. And that’s growing – in April 2019, Spotify founder Daniel Ek told investors that 40,000 songs were being added to Spotify's streaming platform every day. It's not just music though, the catalogue is growing in terms of types of content too.
Battling to be at the forefront of innovation, Spotify has focused on podcasts as well as music for its content growth. Since the acquisition of podcasting production specialist Gimlet Media in 2019, over 700,000 podcasts have been made available to stream and download on Spotify, including a raft of Spotify exclusives.
And if that sounds a bit much, there a set of human-curated podcast playlists to help you find your new favourite shows with names such as 'Best Podcasts of the Week', 'Brain Snacks' and 'Crime Scene' – all self-explanatory and well worth delving into.
Perhaps Apple's advantage over Spotify here is that while both services offer playlists that comprise songs based on your listening habits, Apple also has the Beats 1 Radio stations which feature human DJs at the decks.
But streaming services aren’t quite the global jukebox they could be.
Some anti-streaming artists, including Adele and, historically, Prince, have deliberately restricted their work. Spotify has come into conflict with artists over both the low royalties it pays acts and the very existence of its free tier.
In 2014, Taylor Swift publicly pulled all but one of her songs from Spotify. At the time, Spotify said that 16m of its users had played Swift's music in the 30 days leading up to the removal, adding that she appeared on 19m Spotify playlists.
Swift wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, 'It's my opinion that music should not be free' although she has now conceded this protest.
Jay-Z’s involvement in Tidal has seen some of his albums, including The Blueprint, appear exclusively there, although the artist eventually threw in the towel on that particular exclusivity war.
Apple has cut exclusive deals, including Dr Dre’s Compton album, Drake's Views From The 6 and Britney Spears' Glory, all of which initially appeared on Apple Music only – although they are now available on Spotify. Still, the lure of a paid-for service clearly works when it comes to securing artists, to a degree at least.
Time will tell whether Apple Music’s artist-exclusives will hurt Spotify in the long run, but Spotify is rumoured to be considering keeping some music off its free tier to get more artists on board.
Both services are available on a number of platforms: there’s desktop support for PC and Mac (Spotify has a web player too), plus Android and iOS apps.
Spotify also has the benefit of Connect, which lets premium subscribers stream directly to speakers, TVs or systems, while Apple deploys AirPlay 2 here.
Both have become a function on many hi-fi and AV products – and it's a big pull for those interested in bringing streaming and multi-room listening to their existing system.
**Winner** Draw
The user experience
Both Spotify and Apple Music offer similarly clean, simple and intuitive layouts. That wasn’t always the case, though. When Apple Music first launched, we found its busy interface a bit clunky to use.
But with Apple's 2016 iOS 10 update, the Cupertino giant stripped it back, with cleaner typography and graphics. Features and options are hidden away behind icons and collapsible tabs, and the layout is easier to navigate.
The rule of thumb for using Apple Music is to click everything. Tapping the ellipsis that appears almost everywhere opens options such as: play next, add to library, add to a playlist, share (to any social media), lyrics and download. Spotify music v3.4.0.726 beta mod apk.
Everything is neatly contained within five sections: Library, For You, Browse, Radio and Search/store. Sub-sections for New Music and Curated Playlists are clearly labelled within the Browse section.
The Library is where all your music lives. This includes files stored on your smartphone, CD-ripped WAVs, your own playlists and any music you’ve saved and downloaded while streaming or listening to radio in Apple Music.
Thanks to its compatibility with iCloud sharing, you’ll also be able to see all the music stored on your iTunes account.
MORE: Apple Music review
Spotify Vs App Store App
Spotify allows you to bring your local files into its interface too, but it’s not as well integrated. If you want all your music in one place, Apple Music does it better.
Spotify’s iconic green-tinted silver-on-grey interface has long been the ideal template with its logical and accessible sidebar menu layout, and its consistent focus on content over the years has made it all the more practical.
The Browse (or ‘home’) page throws up context-based playlists, constantly updated UK and global charts, and new releases for your attention, as well as content sorted by genre and based on tracks you’ve previously listened to.
A new ‘Concert’ tab that flags up gigs based on your music tastes and location, as well as ones that are ‘popular near you’, is a nice addition for music-lovers too.
**Winner** Draw
Discovery
https://dialnew288.weebly.com/autopano-giga-for-mac-download.html. For those who like to explore new bands, both Spotify and Apple Music encourage the pioneer in you.
When you register for Apple Music, tapping on floating red circles highlighting different genres of music and artists gives an indication of your initial preferences.
Hitting ‘Love’ or ‘Dislike’ on songs updates this and we are certainly impressed by Apple’s curation, and by how on-point the playlists are. On the iOS app, clicking on the 'For You' heart also brings up a list of regularly updated playlists such as Get Up!, Chill, New Music, and Favourites – new, zero-effort playlists specific to your listening.
By attributing a great deal of focus on music discovery through personalised algorithmic playlists, Spotify has managed to take this step too.
One of its most popular features is Discover Weekly, which uses Spotify’s ‘deep learning’ system to generate a playlist of 30 songs every Monday that are relevant to your listening habits.
There’s also more concentration on discovering new music. Complementing Discover Weekly is Release Radar, a two-hour playlist of brand-new music sent out every Friday, so that you never miss the latest tracks from your favourite artists.
It even includes new remixes of songs from artists you like or have recently listened to, and in case you need even more songs to soundtrack your weekend, there’s a New Music Friday UK playlist that ties in with the official UK chart. Rinsed them by Wednesday? That’s where the Daily Mix, which consists of five genre-specific playlists, comes in. The more you listen the more they evolve…
**Winner** Draw
Video and radio
Content isn’t limited only to music. Both Spotify and Apple have branched out into video content.
MORE: Spotify review
They won’t be challenging YouTube just yet, but we’re keen to see how – and if –these develop. Apple Music still boasts a more attractive and comprehensive radio offering, however.
Unlike Spotify’s algorithmic radio, which curates songs around a particular artist, Apple Music can shout much louder about its live 24/7 global ‘youth-orientated’ station, Beats 1. Fronted by DJs such as Zane Lowe and featuring a host of celebrity guest slots (from the likes of Dr Dre, Pharrell Williams and Elton John), Beats 1 is something that no other streaming service has – and ultimately one Spotify has to take on the chin.
**Winner** Apple Music
Sound quality
The 256kbps AAC files on Apple Music’s iCloud library sound more open and involving than Spotify’s 320kbps MP3 streams, and benefit from extra space, subtlety and punch too.
Play Store App Spotify
It’s not a million miles ahead, though. If you listen on Spotify's web player or via Chromecast, it streams in AAC at 128kbps for free users, or 256kbps for Premium.
Apple Music streams 256kbps AAC files across the board. Spotify still offers decent detail levels and a tonally balanced presentation that’s refined and easy on the ears – it’s just not quite as engaging at 128kbps, of course.
Ultimately though, we’re still waiting for Spotify and Apple Music to adopt a lossless sound quality option similar to Tidal’s. For both services, this seems the next logical barrier to push.
**Winner** Apple Music
Verdict
Calls don’t get much closer than this. Apple Music sounds slightly better and is probably the pick for those who value Beats 1 radio, like having all their music in one place and can’t live without certain artists and access to their brand new albums.
But Spotify is undoubtedly the choice for those who value discovering and sharing music most, and the clear winner for those not wanting to splash out.
So, while Apple Music is an undeniable threat with the definite potential to leapfrog Spotify in the future, the Swedish service remains the one to beat – for now at least.
**Overall winner** Spotify
Spotify Free Music App
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