Spotify says Apple won’t approve a new version of its app | Hacker News Reader

Spotify says Apple won’t approve a new version of its app

recode.net

81 pointsdjug88 comments

Apple's App Store Review Guidelines used to warn against taking complaints to the press:

"If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps."

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/2016...

The current version, published on June 13, 2016, omits that statement:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

It's about the scale of your app. If you are small fish, going to the press isn't going to accomplish anything. Spotify can afford to press the matter. What worse can Apple do to them? Remove their app from the store? Spotify can afford to litigate against that kind of anti-competition.

It's not anti competition. There are app guidelines which say "you mustn't work around iTunes payments". They exist since many, many years. Spotify chose to comply with them. Apple didn't suddenly change them. It's not anti competitive from Apple if Spotify NOW chooses to call them unfair.

Above that, it's Apple's store, with Apple's rules, on Apple's OS. You either comply with the rules or you don't get to put your app on the App Store.

Such an argument didn't help Microsoft in their anticompetition suits.

If "your" store is directly tied to other companies' livelihoods, and design "your" rules deliberately to hamper competition, there can be a strong argument for an anticompetition suit.

The Microsoft situation is rather different. At the time they didn't make hardware and they where forcing pc manufacturers to preinstall certain applications on their computers thus distorting some markets.

Apple makes their own devices, they are not forcing any OEM to include the App Store on their phones, or Safari or even Apple Music. And they are not forcing consumers to use the App Store either as there are other more popular choices.

Walmart is tied directly to many companies' livelihoods. They still have the option to charge for the privilege of selling thru their stores and those companies have the option to refuse.

If Walmart started preventing their suppliers from advertising their other distribution channels besides Walmart, there would be a huge problem. It appears you misunderstand the complaint.

If the suppliers were promoting their other distribution channels inside Walmart you may have the shadow of a point.

And don't get me wrong, I think Apple should allow Spotify or any one else to tell the customer, inside the App, that there are other ways to pay. I think it will create a healthier environment for all, including Apple, but I was just responding to op's comment.

> Apple should allow Spotify or any one else to tell the customer, inside the App, that there are other ways to pay.

So it is anti-competitive then. It is not transparent to the consumer, all they see is that Spotify price increased 30%, for them its cheaper to subscribe to Apple iStream or whatever that called.

It's absolutely anti-competitive when Apple imposes a 30% tax on services which compete with their own services. If Apple imposed 30% equally across the board it would be one thing, but they get 100% (minus credit card fees) of Apple Music subscription money.

Spotify is just calling it unfair now because Apple has just now started to reject their updates on the basis of this rule, even though Spotify didn't change anything related to this in the update in question.

More specifically, Apple started competing in that specific service domain. Apple wasn't into streaming business but, saw Spotify and entered with a 30% price advantage.

I am wondering - how can Apple be non competitive here? I mean if they charge 30% that money will end up back in their own pockets.

By not forcing Spotify to use apple for the payments? By not saying "You aren't allowed to tell people to pay on your site"?

I don"t think Apple is forcing Spotify to use Apple for payments. The "you are not allowed to tell" seems to be a relatively new thing.

You are forced to use Apple for payments. It's entirely stupid to say "well you don't have to let users pay in the app". Every single user expects to be able to pay by credit card on their phone - the phone is a bloody computer. Imagine if your desktop PC only allowed payments via a Microsoft service that charged the application developer 30%. This would NEVER happen, as the very concept is absolutely ridiculous.

There is no technical reason to not allow an app developer to use an alternative like Stripe as their payment processor. Apple tries to sugarcoat it by using phrases like "seamless integration" for end users, never having to enter their credit card number. The reality is, it has nothing to do with user experience. It is 100% about getting that 30%. Nothing else.

I accept a certain level of a walled garden by buying into the Apple ecosystem. I absolutely do not condone charging developers 30% for payment processing. I buy apps from the store, and developers get shafted just for that. I have never, and will never, perform an in-app purchase without first checking whether I can pay the company directly. I don't care if it's $9.99 in-app, and $9.99 on an external web site. I will ensure that I pay outside the app whenever possible. The problem is that the majority of users do not do this. And they shouldn't have to.

It really hurts the user experience sometimes. Kindle books are an example I hit a lot. Amazon can't do purchases in the app without using Apple's in-app purchase system, which would likely cause Amazon to sell at a loss. They also can't even link to their web site, which of course still allows payments even on the phone. So if I want to buy a book, I have to manually go out of the Kindle app, into Safari, go to Amazon, find the book I'm interested in, purchase it, then go back to the Kindle app and hope it synced. If Apple would be less idiotic here, I could be done with one touch.

And of course Apple has iBooks and doesn't have to worry about losing money on each sale because of a 30% transaction fee.

Apple does impose 30% on all services. Just ask Dropbox, or Amazon.

You are arguing that Walmart shouldn't sell their own brand of soda because it charges Pepsi some percentage to sell theirs.

Ridiculous.

Really, where does Amazon use any Apple payment service?

They don't, because of Apple's 30%. That is the point, everybody is getting the same treatment, some accept it, some do not.

Spotify is now doing the same thing Amazon does with their digital services, so why is Spotify running into trouble?

I don't know as I do not have all the facts, or any context other than what Spotify is claiming. I think they should not be in trouble if what they are doing is the same thing Amazon is. I'm also of the opinion that Apple should get rid of the rule that prevents companies from advertising other forms of payment inside the app.

I was just responding to the original comment that made an incredibly childish argument agains the owner of a store not being able to compete with products from other companies.

Really, childish? You don't have to agree, but no way was that "childish."

Ok. I don't agree. The original argument described literally how every other store (specially big chains) in the world works.

It’s not as simple as that though.

If Apple provided any other way to put content on the device that you purchased, then maybe Apple can run their own store any way they please. In reality though, you’re not choosing the App Store over other stores; you have to use the App Store. This allows Apple to put itself in the middle of a transaction that arguably it has no business being involved in. If a person wants to do X with the device that he or she purchased (in this case, installing a new version of Spotify), there should be a supported way to do that even if Apple does not want to bless that version in their own store.

That is not true. The Play Store, the Amazon AppStore and other smaller stores are all choices the consumer has at the time of purchase, and second there is the Web. You can buy on almost any online retailer with an iOS device and in fact iOS users rank consistently among the top spenders on the mobile web.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ios-users-outspend-andro...

The problem seems to be that Apple is preventing Spotify from promoting its own method of payment outside the App Store. It certainly seems like bullying to me as it seems like Spotify's speech is being limited (I realize the App Store is not subject to the 1st amendment, but limiting speech still bothers me).

I agree with you completely, I was just responding to the original comment which in my opinion made a poor case defending Spotify, arguing for a monopoly case against Apple.

I think the more relatable case, and the one that should be compared to, is the case against credit card rules that retailers should charge the same price whether or not a credit card is used. There are laws in some countries (and I believe some states in the US but I'm not sure) that prohibit credit card companies to enforce that rule.

> It's not anti competition. There are app guidelines which say "you mustn't work around iTunes payments"

How is ditching In App subscription working around iTunes payments?

> Above that, it's Apple's store, with Apple's rules, on Apple's OS.

They still have to abide to laws

That guideline was total bullshit anyway. Running to the press frequently helps. Apple doesn't like it, obviously, but "it never helps" was a blatant lie.

Obviously, it's best to exhaust other avenues first, but if Apple is being stupid and won't budge, taking it public can be a great way to get results. I bet it'll work here.

Also, to be fair, guidelines and implied threats like that don't tend to apply to companies that can mobilize PR like Spotify. If you were some small time developer, I could easily see Apple just crushing you for trying to make them look bad.

Even then, it doesn't seem to be true. I've seen plenty of independent developers take their case to the press and it often works in their favor. Worst case they still don't get their way, but I can't recall anyone actually suffering additional trouble for it.

For all the openness Apple claims, developers and companies should be able to talk to press or write blogs about what they want. Apple is benefiting from these apps and tries to silence the voices of arguments. This is pure North Korean kind of rule that only Apple and Kim Jong would approve of.

Openness from for profit companies is a rare beast, and only recently are companies actually starting to approve of openness as they realize its benefits. Putting Apple and North Korea as the only entities that disapprove of running to the press is disingenuous at best.

Does Apple claim openness? They make APIs, developers who make apps for *OS use them and bend to their rules.

This is a game being played out in public. It wasn't a coincidence that Elizabeth Warren mentioned Apple Music yesterday in a speech (among other tech companies).

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/spotify-makes-case-aga...

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/29/12060804/elizabeth-warren-ap...

The app is rejected because Spotify tried to bypass the In-App Purchases system to obtain payment information form subscribers, thus bypassing the 30% cut Apple takes.

This isn't a new requirement at all. Spotify is free to remove signups all together from their App, requiring users already have signed up for an account on their website. This has always been an option.

And this would be fine, except that Apple Music has an advantage here, because they don't get the 30% fee (or allow the user to sign up through the app)

Spotify chose to fight this fight and I guess it's good for them

Well they did build out the entire platform themselves.

Apple built Spotify?

Yeap, bringing Apple Music to this discussion is disingenuous.

The article is pretty light on details, but it seems Apple is simply asking Spotify to follow the rules all developers have to follow.

Ignoring Apple Music is disingenuous

It didn't sound to me like spotify is directly signing up people through the app, rather that they are requesting them to sign up via the website.

That's not how the rule works.

You can sign people up. They can upgrade on your own site. As long as you don't tell them they can do that in the app.

Spotify don't. They were communicating the promotion via email, outside the app, where Apple has no jurisdiction.

A tonne of companies aren't paying Apple 30%. It's basically on a case by case basis -- if Apple likes you or not. They don't like Spotify.

The rule and the fee are complete bullshit. 30% isn't even remotely viable. They should be charging equivalent to transaction fees, which would tally below 5%. Hopefully one day someone will find a law with which they can challenge the fee's insanity in court. Anti-competitiveness seems like the appropriate avenue; we just have to wait for a company to try their hand at it.

At a bare minimum, apps must be allowed to explain to users in-app that they can reduce their payments by paying outside the app.

Isn't viable for whom? The $14 billion transacted through App Store payments to date would suggest that plenty of buyers and sellers have opted in to this market. They must realize that credit card processing isn't the only thing Apple is selling here.

Why would they charge the equivalent of transaction fees when they (Apple) pays those fees? How would they make any money if they only charged transaction fees?

I've run the numbers on products like this before. In order to absorb transaction fees, build your own product, and support it, fees need to be in the 10-15% range.

Also, note that almost no companies charge less if you pay out of app -- the company just keeps more for themselves.

> I've run the numbers on products like this before. In order to absorb transaction fees, build your own product, and support it, fees need to be in the 10-15% range.

Apple does charge 10-15% for Spotify like apps viz. apps that sell subscriptions for more than 1 year.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/subscriptions/whats-ne...

   After a subscriber accumulates one year of paid service,    
   your revenue increases to 85% of the subscription price, 
   minus applicable taxes. All current subscriptions are 
   eligible.

That's a brand new rule, just going into effect.

So is Spotify's letter.

> They don't like Spotify.

They don't like competition.

FTFY

No, this is not true.

At the company I work, we have an app for a customer where you can purchase things on their site. For a long while you could sign up in the app until one day where apple literally said (on a super minor bugfix upgrade): "If you are signing up users in your app, we are contributing to your revenue. We do not want to do that, unless you are using in app purchases".

This particular app could not use IAP for technical reasons, so we had to remove sign up from the app.

That is how the rule works

edit: Although, your point about the case by case basis could apply here, although this is not on a spotify scale, I assure you :)

How Apple is not hit by anti-trust cases across the world on a range of topics is baffling!

Because they aren't a monopoly, they have like 15-20% of the smartphone market. Only Google would have to worry about anti-trust cases

To hell with this "monopoly" crap. The term do not apply to the topic at all, and never has.

All it matters is that a company, or groups of companies, are big enough to distort customer choice to their benefit. This either directly in said market, or by being large in a related market that they can use as leverage.

The way the laws are written, you can be insanely anti-consumer and anti-competitive all you want if you aren't a monopoly. Apple is a distant number 2 to Android in the phone space. So they can dictate things like: our app store and our app store alone, you can't even manually install apps from anywhere else, you can only use our browser engine and no competing engines, etc. Microsoft, for instance, couldn't pull these kinds of things with Windows because it is more of a monopoly on the desktop due to it having >90% user share.

MS could be below 50% and still be in trouble if they were still the big dog of the pack.

How is all that different to a rule like, e.g. "when you come sit at our restaurant', buy OUR food, don't bring outside food".

It's more like you bought takeout food but had to sign a licensing agreement that you would not be permitted to add your own seasonings when you got it home. Unless they were certified seasonings purchased at our restaurant. Using our branded credit card. And they sue anyone that attempts to market seasonings for their restaurant without paying them 30% of the sales price.

Yes, but you're sitting there eating that takeout food at a place (platform) that somebody else created. And even the sale of takeout food happened through that same platform.

Nope. I bought that takeout food and brought it home. I'm not using my iPhone in an Apple store. I'm using it in my apartment. If we're making a clumsy (and inaccurate) analogy to the physical world, this is how far you take it to demonstrate the absurdity of it.

>Nope. I bought that takeout food and brought it home. I'm not using my iPhone in an Apple store.

The "restaurant" is the iOS, not the Apple store. I only used the physical location (a restaurant) as an analogy.

You're using the App in an environment Apple created.

The restaurant as iOS is a flawed analogy, though. It's my phone that I purchased and now own in which Apple's "restaurant" exists and dictates rules to me, the owner?

The comparison got flawed because Apple markets and treats its' OS as their property, in reality when you buy the hardware with software preinstalled you own the software, otherwise they should sell it without iOS. Users should decide how they pay for their applications, not Apple. So it was never Apples restaurant in the first place, or do they sell hardware without the App Store preinstalled? does it not run on the users hardware? Anyways the analogy went bananas. Enjoy your Apples!

Don't all businesses do that? Walmart? Costco? Verizon? AT&T? Bestbuy?

The consequence here is that you are saying a company should not be able to control what they sell in their own stores. That seems pretty extreme.

The tricky bit there is that apple both sell their own products and services alongside being a retailer for third party products and services.

In the end though, someone has to file a complaint with a relevant regulator for anything to happen. And i suspect few wants to go through the years of court rigamarole opposite Apple's legal team.

There are plenty of companies that sell their own products and services alongside being a retailer for third party products. Even in that situation, I don't believe there is any legal or moral requirement that they stock competing products (unless in a monopoly scenario).

It might seem like a crappy thing to do but the alternative is completely unsustainable.

>The tricky bit there is that apple both sell their own products and services alongside being a retailer for third party products and services.

And Costco etc don't do that?

This is true of any large grocery or drug store chain, at least in the U.S. I can go into CVS and buy Allegra allergy medicine, or--sitting right next to it on the shelf, also in a purple box--the CVS generic brand with the same amount of the same active ingredient, for less.

Allegra could pull their product from CVS shelves if they wanted to. But it seems that having access to CVS customers is worth more to them than the sales they lose to CVS generics.

> The consequence here is that you are saying a company should not be able to control what they sell in their own stores.

Spotify is not selling in the App Store

In which way is different from the ebay app or the Amazon app?

> In which way is different from the ebay app or the Amazon app?

Because they're physical goods.

Section 3.1.5 of the new AppStore guidelines states:

    > 3.1.5 Physical Goods and Services Outside of the App:  
    > If your app enables people to purchase goods or services  
    > that will be consumed outside of the app, you must use  
    > purchase methods other than IAP to collect those payments,  
    > such as Apple Pay or traditional credit card entry. Apps  
    > may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies  
    > (e.g. Bitcoin, DogeCoin) provided that they do so in  
    > compliance with all state and federal laws for the  
    > territories in which the app functions.

Spotify is not selling physical goods or services.

11.13 of the old guidelines (new guidelines not finalized yet) states:

    > Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases
    > or subscriptions to be used in the App, such as a "buy"
    > button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book,
    > will be rejected

I know, but in which way is different selling physical goods from outside the App Store than selling digital content from outside the App Store?

The app store is distributing Spotify.

> Don't all businesses do that? Walmart? Costco? Verizon? AT&T? Bestbuy?

The difference is if you don't like either of those companies you can go to Target, Amazon, Frys, or any other big box/online store that would sell similar stuff. On iOS there is only the App Store in terms of distribution.

You can use Android, Windows Phone, etc.

If you want a closer analogy, Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo maintain the only means of distribution for their consoles. Do you believe they should be forced to distribute anything?

How can you "distort customer choice" if you're only at 15% market share? I thought that's the whole point of using antitrust mechanisms against monopolies, but customers in monopolized markets literally don't have another choice.

If Apple is only at 15% market share, it's pretty clear that people using Apple products are doing so because they prefer them to the (much more popular) main competitor.

If there is enough choice for the consumer then why does it matter what a company distorts? The market will crush the company if it goes too far right? You can always not buy Apple and buy Android (outside Google Play Store). Why would they go after Apple for this?

>All it matters is that a company, or groups of companies, are big enough to distort customer choice to their benefit.

That's what all companies are supposed to do.

In the US it's more like 40 to 50%

Depends on what market you are looking at. They have 2/3 of the mobile app market by revenue...

Revenue has never been a monopoly factor.

If I sell a single phone for $1 trillion and somebody buys is, I don't have a "monopoly by revenue".

How does this work in brick & mortar businesses? Is there precedent for forcing a retailer to stock a particular product?

Things may get hairy if said retailer have their own brand of products that they present front and center. Or in some way play favorites with the brands they carry. But there are not really any hard and fast rules for this, similarly to how there are not hard and fast rules regarding corruption.

Retailers always play favorites with brands based on how much companies are willing to pay them. This is nothing new, hidden, nor is there anything illegal about it.

Because no entity has filed a complaint...

Because outside of silicon valley, Apple is a much smaller #2 to Android. Same with their laptop/desktop business. This is why Apple gets to engage in behavior Microsoft never even dreamed of with Windows. Can you imagine the hubbub if Windows on the desktop only had the Microsoft app store and didn't permit any other app store? Or only allowed Internet Explorer and didn't allow any other browsers unless they were just UIs and skins on top of IE? Or locked Windows down so you couldn't even install an app unless it was through their app store? Apple gets away with all of this on iOS because they're not a monopoly, so they can engage in all kinds of anti-competitive behavior as long as their customers don't mind and leave for Android. So far, they don't.

There is a rule that forbids OS X app developers from selling an app that is in the app store at a lesser price somewhere else. I am really surprised that this is not considered anti-competitive price fixing.

Interesting that Spotify would start pushing this issue so hard following immediately on the heels of Apple reducing their cut to 15% for subscriptions after the first year [1].

There had been rumors of Apple extending this reduction to some companies for a while now, wonder if Spotify had been left out of that?

[1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/subscriptions/whats-ne...

I think sometime last year, Amazon removed the sales of Apple TV and Chrome cast from their platform. The platform decides what is profitable for them. After all the consumers and the businesses have their choices open on what to use. But i seriously want Apple to be diplomatic in this issue and allow whatever is best for everyone.

This is a PR stunt.

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