- Spotify’s new iOS update lets it advertise other payment options
- The change comes in response to a new American app store decision
- The app still does not offer AirPlay 2 or Native HomePod Integration
It was fast. Just one day after an American federal judge asked Apple to loosen his grip on the App Store, Spotify has issued an app update – already live in the App Store – which will allow customers to subscribe without going through Apple.
The update was approved by Apple and lets Spotify include details of subscription plans and promotional offers available outside the App Store on Spotify’s website.
Spotify has been a vocal critic of the App Store rules and was in Bullish’s mood after the decision of an American federal judge. Previously limited Apple strongly how much app developers could advertise and link to payment options outside the App Store, with Apple taking 30% cut from payments in the app.
But Spotose’s speed has got some subscribers asking a question: If Spotify can tackle this overnight, why haven’t it fixed some of the most annoying lack of features for Apple devices?
A potential answer, of course, is that the addition of links that are not apple subscription is making money and making Spotify to play nicer with Apple not.
Which Spotify users are still waiting for
For Apple listeners, two of the biggest omissions are AirPlay 2 -Support and Native HomePod integration, both of which have been possible for years. Spotify has chosen not to implement them and as a result, streaming Spotify is on HomePods or to AirPlay devices a bit of a pain.
The reason more streamers – Pandora was also here – did not embrace HomePods was because when you asked them to play music, they would always go to Apple Music. But it was treated five years ago when Apple allowed you to specify other music apps as your standard music player, and Pandora immediately changed its app accordingly.
But at that time, Spotify was celebrated with Apple over the App Store fees and without the mood to play well with his perceived oppressive. It filed its first complaint in Europe in 2019.
As a subscriber BTZ1 put it on the Spotify Community site, it only means having first-gene airplay that “this outdated technology presents several restrictions that directly affect our joy”.
These limits include interruptions in sound, limited bandwidth compared to AirPlay 2 and lack of support for multiple spaces. In a later comment in the same thread, BTZ1 says “I feel punished for wanting to use Spotify in the Apple Ecosystem.”
Obviously, Spotify has the resources to make major changes to his app and make them quickly. So maybe now it can escape Apple’s “app tax”, it may set some of them to improve the Apple subscribers’ experience with the features they have been asking for years.
