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Spotify: Apple One Bundles Will Bring “Irreparable Harm”

By Laura Tucker
News Spotify Apple One Featured

Spotify knocked the new Apple One bundles right out of the gate. It’s clear why it wouldn’t like this competition, but to say it will bring “irreparable harm to the developer community” seems to be going overboard.

Spotify’s Anger w/ Apple One

Much of this goes back to the Epic Fortnite battle. Not happy with giving Apple 30 percent of its subscription fees, Epic encouraged its Fortnite users to seek subscriptions directly from Epic. This caused the App Store to drop the Fortnite app. No winners in that fight.

So now, Spotify is jumping in and saying Apple is not playing fair with its Apple One bundles that were announced at the most recent Apple Event. They involve grouping Apple’s services together for a discount.

News Spotify Apple One Bundle

Shortly after Apple’s announcement, Spotify issued the following statement:

“Once again, Apple is using its dominant position and unfair practices to disadvantage competitors and deprive consumers by favoring its own services. We call on competition authorities to act urgently to restrict Apple’s anti-competitive behavior, which, if left unchecked, will cause irreparable harm to the developer community and threaten our collective freedoms to listen, learn, create, and connect.”

To say these new bundles will “disadvantage competitors” makes sense. And of course, Apple is “favoring its own services.” Why would they create services and not sell them?

Spotify’s fear of the Apple One bundles and how they could affect its business is real and evident. But to say it will bring “irreparable harm to the developer community” as a whole seems a bit of a stretch.

New Apple One Bundles

There are three Apple One subscription bundles to suit different needs. The shame is that you can’t pick and choose and get a certain number of services for a given price. It seems you’re tied to what’s in a particular bundle.

News Spotify Apple One Fitness
  • Individual – Music, TV+, Arcade, 50GB iCloud $14.95/month, saves $6/month
  • Family – Music, TV+, Arcade, 200GB of iCloud $19.95/month, saves $8/month (share with five other people)
  • Premier – Music, TV+, Arcade, 2TB of iCloud, News+, Fitness (Coming late 2020) $29.95/month, saves $25/month (share with five other people)

The Premier plan will only be available in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada, the countries where Apple News+ is available. If the subscription fee is paid with Apple Card, a 3-percent cash discount is given.

If you are thinking of making the jump from Spotify to Apple Music to enjoy the Apple One bundles, or if this is all too much for you and you’re considering switching from Apple Music to Spotify, read on and find out who wins the music war: Spotify vs. Apple Music.

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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