Spotify and Apple in an App Store spat, says report
Tech Industry
Spotify says Apple isn't playing fair.
ReCode reports Spotify sent a letter to Apple's legal team, that says Apple is using its app store approval power as a weapon against Spotify.
Spotify says Apple is causing grave harm to Spotify and its customers, by refusing to approve a new version of Spotify's iOS app.
The letter says this latest episode raises serious concerns under both U.S. and E.U. competition law, and that Apple's objection to Spotify's newest app is anti-competitive.
Spotify essentially says Apple is stopping this newest app because Apple has its own music subscription app, Apple Music.
Spotify has about twice the number of subscribers as Apple Music.
Apple recently announced it has 15 million paid users.
Spotify has around 30 million.
Recode says the latter also suggests that Spotify has an issue with Apple's subscription policy.
Apple charges up to 30% for subscriptions purchased within iOS apps.
Spotify recently started a new promotion, three months of service for $0.99.
If a user signed up at Spotify site.
The letter says Apple threatened to get rid of the Spotify app unless Spotify removed any mention of that promotion in it's app.
Spotify complied with Apple's request however Modify also dropped its app store billing options and that's how we are where we are.
That's it for this Tech News update.
I'm Ayah Zactar and you can stay on top of the biggest stories at cnet.com/update.
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