Have you ever called a song out to your Siri and it couldn’t be played, or even recognized? It is so frustrating. Well, this may be changing very soon. According to MacRumors, Spotify and Apple are in talks of allowing Siri to play songs, playlists and albums from Spotify. The truce between the tech giants was initially reported by The Information.
In the next iPhone operating system of iOS 13, Apple is introducing SiriKit with some major changes. These changes are largely helping with integration. Specifically, allowing listeners to seamlessly ask Siri to play music, podcasts, audiobooks, and radio from third-party apps. But these conversations come at an interesting time for both Spotify, and Apple.
Spotify Sparking EU Investigation into Apple and Questions about an “Apple Tax”
This is all following an antitrust complaint from Spotify in March through the European Union. After which, an investigation was prompted regarding Apple and their practices concerning Spotify. Spotify is claiming that the App Store rules “limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience.” Furthermore, Spotify is outraged over an “Apple Tax”. Apple would be taking a 30% cut of every Spotify subscription. This tax would be applied to anyone who upgrades to Spotify Premium through the app store. Spotify CEO Daniel EK shared his concerns in a Blog post in March:
“If we pay this tax, it would force us to artificially inflate the price of our Premium membership well above the price of Apple Music.”
Ek highlights many of the unfair practices in the blog post. He is asking that Spotify be treated the same as other apps in the App store. The post ends with a site called Time to Play Fair. The playful website full of cartoon blobs has plenty of content and videos. The blobs on the site inform you with what is going on with Apple, from the side of Spotify with a silky narration. Hopefully Spotify and Apple can come to an agreement soon, and fair practices will be enforced for all.
