“Because we have found that once they do understand what is happening, there is almost unanimous agreement that it is unfair.”Ĭlarke said it is important for the company to raise the issue in the press because Spotify users might not understand why the audiobooks experience in the iOS app is so cumbersome. “We think it is critical that users, policymakers, and competition authorities really understand what is happening,” Clarke explained when asked about why Spotify is creating so much noise around the issue. In recent days, Spotify has issued a blistering press release and participated in a lengthy story about the matter with The New York Times. While Spotify has no real recourse to compel Apple to accept its app featuring its audiobooks workaround, it is using the skirmish to assail Apple in the media and focus attention on the company’s 30% in-app tax, which has long been criticized by the streamer and others. We know it’s not ideal.” (Apple, of course, also sells audiobooks via its pre-installed Apple Books.) iOS users who scroll through Spotify’s audiobooks library and tap on a selection are greeted with a message: “Want to listen? You can’t buy audiobooks in the app. The effect is clear to would-be book buyers. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here. But they were all ultimately rejected after undergoing reviews for the App Store, forcing the company to essentially abandon offering its customers an avenue for audiobook purchases in its iOS app.Ī version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. (SPOT), instead, came up with three workarounds, which it believed were consistent with Apple’s policies. That means that the company cannot sell audiobooks, a business it is trying to break into, inside its iOS app.

(SPOT) simply refuses to fork over the whopping 30% cut of its business to Apple.

“We are talking about this because it is reflective of Apple’s anti-competitive practices across the board,” Harry Clarke, associate general counsel and Spotify’s lead competition lawyer, told CNN in an interview Tuesday. The music streamer is taking its grievances with the Silicon Valley goliath public, openly lashing out at the company over a dispute that centers on the 30% App Store fee Apple charges for in-app digital services transactions. Spotify is looking to give Apple a good bruising in the press.

Can you get spotify app on macbook