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Comment by kingsleyopara | Hacker News Reader

Worth pointing out that when this complaint was filed Spotify was publicly complaining about the lack of equal access to the HomePod and Apple Watch.[0]

Apple addressed this with API’s at WWDC the following year.[1] Yet here we are, almost 4 years later and Spotify have yet to implement support whereas competing services have.[2]

[0] https://newsroom.spotify.com/2019-03-13/consumers-and-innova...

[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10061/

[2] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/06/deezer-announces-voice-...

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The APIs don't allow applications quite the same access as Apple Music has. I imagine that using them would weaken Spotify's complaints, while also resulting in a sub-par user experience. Users lose out in the short run, but I wouldn't necessarily blame Spotify for this.

It would result in a significantly improved user experience… I really have no sympathy for Spotify intentionally refusing to improve their HomePod experience in order to avoid “weakening their complaint.”

This point in time is probably the peak of it not being worth it, assuming that this multi-billion dollar fine causes Apple to change strategy somewhat. I'd imagine it's likely to only get better from here, as Spotify implement whatever Apple gives them and Apple hopefully gives them more.

Because of this, I wouldn't judge Spotify at this point as this decision will probably look better over time. Maybe it's still not worth it in the long run, but at some level it will become worth it.

Right: complainants can argue they should have access to all of Apple’s hardware devices for free while they themselves are an Apple-level monopoly in their market. I wonder how many billions of dollars in exclusive podcast deals for formerly openly distributed content consumers are missing out on because of these anti-steering rules.

They* don't have to hustle to compete when they're the in-market dominant player.

* I mean Spotify.

Drives me nuts. Apple even added this weird sort of work around where if you ask for it on Spotify, it connects to your phone and the phone airplays Spotify to the HomePod.

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