“Spotify is trying to raise awareness around the fact that it’s cheaper to subscribe on the web instead of through Apple’s App Store,” Chris Welch reports for The Verge.
“The leading subscription music service plans to email iPhone customers the below note encouraging them, if they haven’t already, to start paying at Spotify.com and save a few dollars,” Welch reports. “‘In case you didn’t know, the normal Premium price is only $9.99, but Apple charges 30 percent on all payments made through iTunes,’ the email blast reads. ‘You can get the exact same Spotify for only $9.99/month, and it’s super simple.'”
Welch reports, “The message is followed with a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to shut off auto-renew through iTunes (so Apple won’t keep charging you the higher $12.99-per-month rate) and transfer your account to the web — something that can only be done once your current subscription lapses.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh ok. Spotify is already jumping through Apple’s hoops just like a good little outmoded subscription music also-ran should. 🙂
SEE ALSO:
Oh ok, Spotify: Apple’s iOS 8.4 adoption already at 37 percent – July 7, 2015
Apple Music could kill more than just Spotify, it could kill music labels, too – June 25, 2015
Spotify founder: Oh ok, we don’t need to be number one in music streaming – June 11, 2015
Why Apple Music will gut and publicly execute Spotify – June 10, 2015
Spotify CEO claims to be ‘ok’ with Apple Music – June 9, 2015
Jimmy Iovine and Eddy Cue: Apple Music gunning for Spotify, YouTube, and terrestrial radio – June 9, 2015
Something about Apple Music betraying Apple’s brilliance by ignoring ‘The Harry Potter Theory of Marketing’ or some such nonsense – June 9, 2015
Bob Lefsetz on Apple Music: What team is Jimmy Iovine on? – June 9, 2015
Apple Music’s huge advantage over Spotify – June 9, 2015
Apple Music is a major mess and it won’t beat Spotify or something – June 9, 2015
When Apple Music arrives, what happens to iTunes Match? – June 9, 2015
What Apple Music says about how Apple views musicians – June 8, 2015
Apple’s revolutionary Apple Music just might prove its skeptics wrong – June 8, 2015
Apple unveils revolutionary Apple Music service – June 8, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
No less than I would expect them to do. Surprised they didn’t do this a long time ago.
Apple playing catch-up through acquisition–ie Iovine/Beats music and it is Apple that must prove their product can best Spotify. Apple has an advantage in that Iovine/Beats (Apple) Music is already baked into the software. Only thing is, you can’t force people to use it.
If Apple’s Iovine Music ultimately proves itself to be the superior service then so be it. But until then all’s fair in terms of Spotify keeping pricing competitive. Why in the world would anyone want to pay an extra $3 to Apple? This is a solid no-brainer move by Spotify ..
Why an extra $3 to Apple?
Security.
Anything download from iTunes is screened by Apple.
Apple has my credit card number and I trust them.
What happens is Spotify runs short of cash and they sell my information?
$3/month isn’t a make or break proposition for me. In this case it is cheap insurance.
lol..do you write for The Onion in your spare time? “Here’s an extra 3 DOLLARS A MONTH to ‘secure’ a credit card that Apple should be securing ANYWAY” as part of their JOB. I guess my 5 family iphones, 4 macbooks, 2 imacs, monthly icloud, itunes etc etc don’t already pay for that?
Sorry rp, I think giblet didn’t understand that you were concerned about Spotify’s security, not Apple’s.
Of course Spotify is free to charge $9.99 on the Apple store also. There is nothing forcing them to have a $12.99 price tag on the Apple store, other than they don’t want to share any profits with Apple for their part in making a highly successful distribution point for their software/service.
If I were Apple, I would stay the course, don’t be nasty or retaliate, innovation and time are your friends.
Isn’t that what I said?
Wait, wouldn’t the also ran be Apple in this scenario? Streaming services including Spotify have been around for 6+ years before Apple came fashionably late to the party.
The minute Apple Music turned on, Spotify instantly became an also-ran.
Why? Because of its impenetrable UI? Its lack of content like some live albums by Rush and other great bands? By being so abysmally late to the game? With that ridiculously high price? Oxygen’s running a little low in planet fanboy… Cohaagen give these fanboys air!
‘Rush’ how quaint. The ‘also run’ is the one who trails in the performance of the leaders so we will know the answer as to who is the also runner in about 6 months to a year, perhaps longer if one service is catching the other. Strange that someone even one who follows Rush could somehow think it equates to when you actually enter the race, after all its your performance in that race that counts as was demonstrated ably by the iPad tablet race Apple entered so long after Microsofts pathetic efforts.
One likes to believe
In the freedom of music
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity
For the words of the profits
Are written on the studio wall
Concert hall
Echoes with the sounds, of salesmen
From Spirit of Radio-Rush
“Also ran” refers to the loser of the race not the first off the blocks.
apple was not first of the blocks, but it will come first. Whereas Spotify will be an “also ran”.
Doubtful..where’s the advantage of moving to Iovine Music from Spotify?
Can’t say from personal experience, but reading spec charts, there are many. Most obvious are vastly larger amount of content, and more features.
MDN’s take is ridiculous. Spotify shows users how to cut Apple out of the loop, saving them money at the same time – and Spotify is “jumping through Apple’s hoops”?
You must be new here?
Apple holds the hoop, also-ran/Spotify is having to jump through that hoop to try and keep subscribers from jumping ship, which means through the hoop Apple is holding.
Well until Apple Music isn’t painful to use and stops deleting my playlists randomly and refusing to keep music offline so I can listen when I’m not on WiFi, I’m not sure what Spotify has to worry about. At least Spotify WORKS.
I’m beyond frustrated with Apple Music. Even listening to music I already have on my phone is painful.
I haven’t had any of those problems with Apple Music. What are you doing wrong?
Perhaps Joe isn’t even using Apple Music, I don’t have those problems either.
I have run into smartphone users who time and again claim they are using some Apple software or another when they have an Android phone. The mindshare of Apple’s iTunes, Music, etc. is so high that many non-techy Android users think they are using Apple apps. It is quite humorous.
Spotify is in a fight for it’s life. It’s not profitable, and no one wants to buy it. They made a huge mistake by charging the best customers out there, iOS users, an extra 3 bucks for the convenience of signing up through Apple.
It was a mistake, and now they’re scrambling. They desperately need paying subscribers, and frequently offer deals for as little as .99 cents for three months to get people to sign up (that would pay for a couple years of Apple charges). They should have eaten the Apple 30%, built their service and worry about the extra fee later. Instead, they punished Apple users who didn’t try to go around Apple.
Guess what? It’s just easier for Apple fans to use Apple Music, which seems like a deal because Spotify insisted on an Apple tax. $9.99 or $12.99? Why not choose the Apple premium service that costs less. They were stupid.
It’s like Coke getting upset because fast food restaurants demand big discounts to carry the product. Or a book seller not wanting to pay a shelf fee and telling people to buy their book online. They needed Apple customers, Apple charged for access to them, and now they’re screwed.
Spotify can be the service for the very few cheap Android users that will pay. That is… until Apple Music takes all them too.
Not only stupid but short-sighted. Did streaming music execs really believe Apple would rest on its iTunes laurels? It seems these guys, like other woeful business geniuses who came before, continue to underestimate Apple, who despite its size can turn on a dime.
Spotifiy’s biggest mistake was not allowing Apple to buy the company way back when. So Apple will just out innovate them.
Why would I pay Apple for a service that works terribly when Spotify actually works as advertised and lets me listen to music without being ready to throw my phone across the room? It’s not “easier” to use a service that works like crap.
Spotify wants “platform neutrality” like Chen from Blackberry. Yeah, he got pretty far with that, too. I think directing customers to a cheaper avenue than Apple would directly violate their app contract, and result in Apple pulling Spotify from the App Store. I read that as Spotify has thrown in the towel on winning, and is now just hoping to be evicted so that they can sue for damages. Pretty pathetic.
Yeah I was inking the same thing. I’m pretty sure Apple has something in the contract that they have devleopers sign that says they won’t charge less on a website for subscriptions then they do throug iTunes. I doubt Apple will automatically remove their app though, they’ll probably just force them to lower the price in the iTunes store or raise the price online.
Ah nope that would be illegal, it’s called Antitrust. Look it up.
Except they did have this policy with magazine subscriptions. Anyone offering a subscription through the iTunes/App Store had to offer it at the same subscription as they did everywhere else. That’s not antitrust, it’s a common clause in business contracts
This is exactly the number one reason I will not own an iOS device.
Spotify’s emails don’t break any Apple rules. But charging more for the in-app purchase than purchases made outside the app DO violate the in-app purchase rules. Apple would have yanked Spotify out of the store years ago if they were little developers like the rest of us.
The problem Spotify has is people are lazy. They want to download an app and go. When their subscription runs out, they are just going to try Apple music for free. Then, it’s going to be easy 9.99 with Apple or run to a website to get the same price.
this is strange. If I buy a hotel room or a flight from Travelocity, I can’t go to the Hilton website or the United website to get a cheaper rate. Those rules are set by the travel sites to avoid being undercut in exchange for providing a service to the hotel or airline. Why can’t apple enact the same rule here?
Pretty sure they do have the same rule, this will come back to bite Spotify.
You can..it’s just that with the NEXT hotel room(s) you buy, you have the ability to buy it from any vendor (direct) without Apple’s $3 hotel hooker fee–rather than getting locked into buying from hotel vendor.
What are you talking about? Hilton is who sets its baseline price, not some travel site. The travel site can choose to make Hilton’s direct price but the travel site doesn’t in anyway control Hilton’s pricing.
I’m a statesider living in Tokyo. Spotify is not even offered here. Apple Music subscription is a bargain for such a huge catalog of music. I remember pre iTunes here in Japan. It was pay us $25 for a music CD. Take it or leave it.
I don’t blame Spotify for doing this but there email is not really accurate. The way Spotify words it, Apple it tacking 30% on to everything which is not true, Apple has always taken a 30% cut of the sale price but they are also handling the bandwidth and credit card processing. Personally I never liked Spotify, the thing I like so far with Apple Music is it is all the original songs but the original artists not a bunch of covers.