The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps to iPhone and iPad users (‘iOS users’) through its App Store. In particular, the Commission found that Apple applied restrictions on app developers preventing them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app (‘anti-steering provisions’). This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.
And Apple released a letter that sounds petty and greedy.
Despite that success, and the App Store’s role in making it possible, Spotify pays Apple nothing.
That’s because Spotify doesn’t owe you anything. If I release a piece of software for Apple, Android, Linux, Windows, etc., I don’t owe these OSes anything for that. Apple makes plenty of money selling hardware, that’s good enough for them.
These delusional bastards really need a few slaps around their heads to get this concept to sink in.
I can see an argument for owing something for hosting the app in the App Store, but certainly not 30% of what every user pays or whatever ridiculous amount Apple charges. Price it like hosting a file on S3, perhaps.
Perhaps! But only if they allowed third party app stores. Because as it stands right now, they’re basically inventing a cost that they pass on to developers, and then rewarding themselves handsomely for the cost that they would have never needed to pay if they allowed others to compete in this area. It’s still a tactic they could not get away with if they were not a monopoly.
Hell nah. They cannot be the sole gatekeepers, alternative app stores that are outside of Apple’s control need to exist.
Damn that’s petty. They’re like a 5 year old child that got their toy taken from them
They’re used to being treated like God’s special little tech company here in the states, so of course they’re going to throw a fucking tantrum when faced with a regulatory body that actually treats them as they should be treated.
“Mah, but I helped spotify! Wah”
That’s a
paddlinanti-trust forced breakup!The beatings will continue until
moraleanti-consumer practices improve.
Lmaooo
“Spotify doesn’t even pay us!!!”
Edit: omg its so tone deaf, the pot calling the kettle black:
"In short, Spotify wants more. "
Once more, lmaooooo
They’re getting punished for keeping the users in a golden cage, and they are mad that they might have to give some of that power away. You can tell by the fact that not a single paragraph actually addresses the reason for the fine. The EU doesn’t give a damn how many times you flew engineers to Stockholm, this is about the conditions in which iOS operates that hurt both developers and users. But we already knew that Apple doesn’t give a fly about users, it’s money and nothing else for them. “Spotify doesn’t pay Apple” oh cry me a river.
I am wondering if it’s really true, that Spotify pays nothing to Apple. If my information is correct every app provider needs to have at least one active Apple Developer subscription (in the case of Spotify there is probably far more than just one account involved). If it is true that Spotify pays nothing to Apple the only possibility is that Apple invited them to bring their app to iOS and granted them free access.
I know 99 USD is not what Apple is after, but it seems dishonest to not disclose this.
They’re just bitter that Spotify is leading the market and not Apple Music and they crybaby because of that. They’ve been bullying Spotify from the beginning and there has been bad blood on both sides for years. Apple has not made it easy for Spotify, why would Spotify give them any more money? They could have worked together, allowing HomePod and Siri to control Spotify and other cross integrations then that would have maybe been a reason to share revenue. But that’s kinda like The Little Red Hen here.
Wait, you still can’t use HomePod/Siri to control Spotify? How the fuck does this company continue to exist? Why do people put up with their fucking garbage?
The only service available on HomePod to voice command is AppleMusic. For Spotify, you can AirPlay from your phone’s app like a Bluetooth speaker but you can select a song by voice. Only play pause and volume and only when you have your phone available for that.
Yeah, that’s really really fucking stupid.
That’s on Spotify, HomePods have been able to stream from other music services for years: https://screenrant.com/apple-homepod-supported-music-services-how-many/
It’s very much not on Spotify. It supports services apple decided aren’t competing with Apple Music. Look at all the things missing, as your article points out.
It’s crazy how much bullshit Apple can pull, and even semi educated people will come to their defense blaming other people for apples failings.
It supports services apple decided aren’t competing with Apple Music.
So, Apple’s in the wrong because Spotify didn’t add the Siri music API?
In 2020, Apple did a HomePod Siri music API, and some services, such as Pandora, have adopted it.
Unfortunately, Spotify, the biggest music streaming service, has still not implemented thishttps://9to5mac.com/2023/09/21/ios-17-play-spotify-music-on-homepod/
It’s worth mentioning Apple has released a new API for music streaming apps allowing them to be controlled by Siri through a HomePod. However, Spotify, for whatever reason, has refused to implement the software into its app on iOS.
Like, I get it: the internet has a hate boner for Apple, and in a lot cases it’s justified. But it’s 100% on Spotify for this one.
And coincidentally YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon Music, all of Apple Musics competition, just all happened to not implement this? All of Apples competition just decided to not add a pretty critical function to the people of that ecosystem? When they all do it in Google’s?
Yeah, I don’t buy that. At all. Sure the API might be there, but you know who gatekeeps those APIs? Apple. This smells a lot more like Apples fued with Google over turn by turn directions bullshit. Especially when we can see how blatantly hostile to Spotify Apple is willing to be.
It seems a lot more likely that Apple is holding that API over their heads and refusing to allow access to it, than it does that all their Apple Music competition just happens to have all conveniently forgotten to implement a pretty core feature in Apple’s ecosystem, while remembering to do it in Googles.
deleted by creator
It reads like a child throwing a temper tantrum…
Doesn’t it‽ it’s nuts how bad it sounds.
Nice interrobang!
I made a keyboard shortcut on my phone to type ‽ when I type ?!
Under the App Store’s reader rule, Spotify can also include a link in their app to a webpage where users can create or manage an account.
Instead, Spotify wants to bend the rules in their favor by embedding subscription prices in their app without using the App Store’s In-App Purchase system.
I’m confused now. What is a “reader app”?
Spotify wants to make subscriptions an app functionality and Apple restricts that to it’s own payment system - and the alternative they provide is external websites?
Why the heck is it called a “reader rule” and “reader app”?
IIRC it’s because it comes from before when Apple was sued over charging 25-30% of all eBooks sales while pushing iBooks.
It was a while ago though so hard to find good sources now.
😡
That was a very funny joke apple made!
deleted by creator
MS and Google are also continously fined billions by the EU over anti competitve and anti trust practices and, so they don’t get particularly preferential treatment.
The issue here is that Apple only allows devs to let users sign up for their service through Apple. Apple also demands 30% of the subscription fee when doing this. They don’t allow a developer to have a button in the app that allows to sign up through their website, or to mention that you can sign up through a website.
So the devs only have two options aside from not having an iOS app: Eat the cost and lose 30% of income to Apple, for who it’s basically free money. Or charge the extra cost over the normal price to the user.
The EU has rules against this and to do business there you need to comply with those rules. Multi billion companies basically ignore those rules until they get fined, which in most cases is just considered cost of operation. After which they may or may not continue the practice if the fine is lower than what they’d lose by stopping.
The issue here is that Apple only allows devs to let users sign up for their service through Apple. Apple also demands 30% of the subscription fee when doing this. They don’t allow a developer to have a button in the app that allows to sign up through their website, or to mention that you can sign up through a website.
“Reader” apps like Spotify can have a link to sign up on their website. There are more rules around than there maybe should be, but it’s allowed, and Apple’s letter says Spotify chooses not to do it.
Yeah, because that’s basically irrelevant. Their problem is about where payment is made and how ridiculous it is to have users have to set up subscriptions on the web. Having them sign up there doesn’t help that problem at all. It’s just Apple fishing for more sympathy.
Which is why it’s better for fines to be expressed as percentages of revenue of the company. Not raw amounts. That way it truly hurts their bottom line and makes them listen and comply.
I mean, that is what happened here – they looked at market cap and yearly revenue to determine the fine amount. I agree with you for like speeding tickets which need to have their fines pre-listed, but for stuff like this a commission deciding the fine is exactly what you want. They could have gone higher ofc but the higher you make the punitive damages the higher the chances of an appeal working.
Seeing horrible actors like apple getting fined gives me a nice hit of dopamine.
Even though the Commission has fined the company concerned, damages may be awarded by national courts without being reduced on account of the Commission fine.
So if/after Apple’s appeal is declined, Spotify - the driving force of this EU investigation - can sue Apple for damages with additional cost to Apple.
For a middle class person, that’s equivalent of being sued for €1000, with a good chance of getting away with €100 even when losing. When will fines for big multinationals ever be adequate?
According to this, the fine includes a punitive damage:
Vestager said that the lump sum of €1.8 billion had been added as a deterrent since the basic amount of the fine, which she compared to a “parking ticket,” would have been quite small.
The total fine of €1.84 billion amounts to 0.5% of Apple’s worldwide turnover, according to Vestager.
Still not enough in my opinion, but hopefully if this sticks, future damage awards will be even higher. In any case, there will be a lot more fines and regulations coming down on Apple into the future (thanks in large part to the DMA), so even though this is just a single instance, they will hopefully add up pretty significantly in the coming years.
So doesn’t Spotify pay them the 100 dollars a year to be a developer? So Apple says they get nothing for from Spotify for developing the platform and tools, but they’re outright lying. And if the 100 isn’t enough increase the price.
Apple just seems like a crying baby in this letter.
$100 top Apple is literally nothing. So are they technically lying? Yes. But in all actuality $100 means nothing to them.
There’s a LOT to complain about Apple, but this is just semantics.
It’s very indicative of the culture though. That people pay hundreds of dollars a year just for the privilege of using their products is taken for granted.
Good guy EU!
Nice to see a reasonably sized fine. In the US it would be like 5 million and they’d spend 10 times that fighting it in court and still not affect their profits for the month.
It’s only reasonable if they earned 1.8 billion or less from it.
Otherwise they’ll just do it again.
Good.
Woah, eat shit Apple
nice
Spotify should have handled their issues with the app store rules but just not making an IOS app. If the biggest music streaming service in the world didn’t work with iPhones maybe Apple would have had to reconsider some things.
They can’t just not have an app… They don’t have that much leverage over other music streaming services
Hey a decent fine
I wish the EU would just ban Apple altogether and be done with it! No more sales of anything Apple.
Close all the stores, both local and online, stop selling accessories, stop selling macs, iPads, TV etc.
Let current device owners use it until it breaks and then recycle it.
End of story. That company is just poison. The apple logo suits them - it’s the poisonous apple given to snow white!!
We can dream
😊
Wet dream of euro communism, get rid of any powerfull competition that keeps messages e2e encrypted and won’t install spyware on their hardware. Talk with evil corporations like google and microsoft to enforce one digital id, then presinstall spyware on every android and windows os to be able to login to internet.
“Hurr durr, communism is anything I don’t understand”
Regressivist scum shouldn’t be allowed in public.
Lol. Apple is at the HEART of communism and NWO. It is BIG BROTHER. That’s why their devices are locked down - to lock you in…
Don’t forget Apple complied with Chinese Communist government to give them access to users iCloud accounts and also banned apps Chinese government doesn’t like. Meanwhile Google is still banned in china because they refused to censor the internet.
Plus on android I don’t have to log into anything Google and can install open source apps to me hearts delight, with zero spyware or even install a different OS. Can’t do that with apple stuff.
Rethink your world view.
deleted by creator
And you what, read minds that you know what people want and who rules the world ? You praise that company can’t protect their business and government that can enforce any company to do anything government want. You know who was doing that before, opressing companies that don’t do what government wants ?
You’re supporting government making decisions about how people need to live by punishing companies and not managing to maintain free market and support small business. Those like you that think that it’s good to punish people by taking money from them are the worst.
The difference between apple and android is that apple is sole producer of both software and hardware platform if you like it or not and it’s protecting it’s IP. If you don’t like apple products nobody is enforcing you to buy them or to use them. It’s only a feeling of missing out that drives your anger. If apple got 0.5% of market would anyone brag about company having their both hardware and software platform closed ? Does anyone brags about nintendo not allowing everyone to install anything on their console ? But no you want to punish all people who use apple products because you hate them and they didn’t do anyting wrong beside don’t care about what you think and have a free will to make their own decisions.
You hate people that use apple because they made decision to use apple product. That’s racism, facism or mental disability. Go see the doctor.
Are you on drugs or something bro? I don’t hate anyone. If anything I feel sorry for apple customers because they are being abused and don’t even know it.
You should read up on Richard Stallman and the ideas of Libre Software/Free Open Source Software.
Then you will understand how bad Apple really is towards its users and why everyone should be using Linux and open source software.
Siemens Mobile, Alcatel, Ericssson, Nokia, Psion - where are those phone manufacturers, where are those companies selling their tech right now and why their main market is not in EU ? Symbian OS, where is this open source operating system ? You don’t see what globalists are doing because you’re delusional, shout open source and you are sold whatever and whoever is behind it. Books are not real life. I can’t wait for chinese companies take over every automotive brand in EU after EU destorys their automotive like they destroyed their mobile phone manufacturers, maybe this would wake up people.
Many of these companies still exist but do other things. The biggest open source successful project is Servers - much servers run Linux. After that the next most successful open source is Android - the best selling mobile OS on the planet. That’s really my friend…
First thing is that Android is not open source. It’s open core. Second thing go make android phone without signing NDA with Google, try to convince factories to sell you parts so you can make a mobile phone and wait until they say they don’t want to be removed from Google official list.
Oh those companies do different things now so they’re cool ? What things they do ? Siemens Mobile renamed and owned by Chinese, Alcatel licensed to TCL - Chinese. You’re bragging aboout China being bad, but look those companies do different things they’re good, they were forced to sell their business to China so they’re good now.
It’s all good, it’s great. Great because you can install your linux. Very soon only on old hardware because they won’t sell you new one without spyware and drm inside but well you’re good. You can install things, but you can’t install them on Playstation, you can’t install them on Nintendo, on your coffe maker, on your washing machine, on your owen, on your car or anywhere you want. You can install things only where they allow you to do it and you’re happy with that. LOL
Dear MAGAt, delete your account and cut your internet cable.
Sure, thanks. Wish you all the best too. What next order you got from your commander ?
