Apple Fires Back
Apple has responded to Spotify’s complaint over its supposed ‘unfairness’ regarding the way Apple taxes apps on its app store.
Apple first addressed Spotify’s point about exclusivity, stating that it had actually ‘reached out’ to Spotify with regards to support for Siri and Airplay 2. Apple also claimed that Spotify is ‘deeply integrated’ into its CarPlay platform and even has an app on the Apple Watch, contrary to what Spotify stated in its complaint.
Apple also said that Spotify failed to mention that the 30% tax it’s referring to is only applicable on the first year of subscriptions, after which, it drops to a mere 15%. And since the majority of Spotify users on Apple devices are either using the free service or are availing Spotify through their mobile carrier plans, Apple believes that only ‘a small fraction’ of users are going through Apple’s revenue-sharing model.
The app store, according to Apple, “helped create many millions of jobs, generated more than $120 billion for developers and created new industries through businesses started and grown entirely in the App Store ecosystem.”
And to Spotify’s claim that Apple is ‘blocking their access to products and updates to their app,’ Apple says, “We’ve approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on Spotify’s behalf, resulting in over 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app. The only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every other app follows.”
