Given that Spotify’s complaints about Apple
that it filed with the European Union (EU) –
reportedly prompting the latter to decide
to launch an antitrust investigation into the
Cupertino giant earlier this year – included
a lack of Siri integration, could the latest
developments mark a change in the recently
fiery relationship between the two companies?
While such Siri integration has now happened
at last with the arrival of iOS 13, Spotify might
argue that it’s still not enough, particularly
given that users have to mention Spotify’s
name to use the functionality. The company
might also point out that such support is only
presently provided on iOS 13 devices, instead of
all devices running any variant of Apple’s mobile
operating system.
Nonetheless, we certainly hope that the latest
announcements mark the start of Spotify and
Apple once more becoming something closer
to friends than enemies. Both companies, after
all, have derived considerable benefit from each
other’s success stories over the past decade or so
- and we have our fingers crossed that those are
success stories very much destined to continue
for decades to come.
by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan