Spotify updates iOS app in record time with new pricing options – leaving fans wondering why other fixes are taking so long

• Spotify’s new iOS update lets it advertise other payment options
• The change comes in response to a new US App Store ruling
• The app still doesn’t offer AirPlay 2 or native HomePod integration

That was quick. Just one day after a US federal judge told Apple to loosen its grip on the App Store, Spotify has issued an app update – already live in the App Store – that’ll enable customers to subscribe without going through Apple.

The update was approved by Apple and lets Spotify include details about subscription plans and promotional offers that are available outside the App Store on Spotify’s website.

Spotify has been a vocal critic of App Store rules and was in bullish mood following the ruling from a US federal judge. Previously, Apple heavily restricted how much app developers could advertise and link to payment options outside the App Store, where Apple takes a 30% cut from in-app payments.

But the speediness of Spotify’s move has got some subscribers asking a question: if Spotify can address this overnight, why hasn’t it fixed some of the most annoying missing features for Apple devices?

One potential answer, of course, is that adding non-Apple subscription links makes money and making Spotify play nicer with Apple doesn’t.

What Spotify users are still waiting for

For Apple listeners, two of the biggest omissions are AirPlay 2 support and native HomePod integration, both of which have been possible for years. Spotify has chosen not to implement them and as a result streaming Spotify on HomePods or to AirPlay devices is a bit of a pain.

The reason multiple streamers – Pandora was here too – didn’t embrace HomePods was because when you asked them to play music they would always go to Apple Music. But that was addressed five years ago when Apple enabled you to specify other music apps as your default music player, and Pandora promptly changed its app accordingly.

But by then Spotify was feuding with Apple over App Store fees and in no mood to play nice with its perceived oppressor. It filed its first anti-trust complaint in Europe in 2019.

As subscriber btz1 put it on the Spotify Community site, only having first-gen AirPlay means that “this outdated technology presents several limitations that directly impact our enjoyment”.

Those limits include interruptions in the audio, limited bandwidth compared to AirPlay 2 and lack of multi-room support. In a later comment in the same thread, btz1 says “I feel punished for wanting to use Spotify in the Apple ecosystem.”

Clearly, Spotify has the resources to make big changes to its app and to make them quickly. So perhaps now it can escape Apple’s “app tax” it can put some of them towards improving Apple subscribers’ experience with the features they’ve been asking for for years.

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Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.