Apple vs Spotify

The battle between the world's largest music services has escalated. We take a look at what's happening

- CHARLOTTE HENRY

Spotify and Apple Music are the two largest music streaming services in the world, attracting millions of listeners each day. For years, their parent companies have been locked in PR, political and legal battles. Essentially, Spotify thinks the iPhone-maker treats it unfairly and favours its own product. Apple says that Spotify has to play by the standard App Store rules. This includes paying Apple a 30% cut for payments made via the App Store and accepting it has banned other forms of transactions (read on for more about changes here).

Spotify is classed as a reader app by Apple. This means that it is allowed to provide a link within the app that takes users to a website from where they can manage their account. But products like Spotify cannot show that it offers cheaper pricing via its website in the app. Indeed, to avoid the so-called 'Apple tax', Spotify does not give users the option to upgrade their plan within its app at all. You can see the price of its Premium plans but cannot buy it on your iPhone. Instead, there is simply a message that says ‘You can’t upgrade to Premium in the app. We know, it’s not ideal.’

Apple has just recently been hit with a hefty fine from the EU.

Verdict and appeal