
Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers - srameshc
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-music-on-track-to-overtake-spotify-in-u-s-subscribers-1517745720
======
sanjeetsuhag
Honestly, I can't imagine switching to Apple Music. Speaking as a guy who owns
an iPhone and a Mac. I love being able to smoothly control playback from any
device. I love how seamless the experience is, I've only tried the Apple Music
Trial when it first came out and I can't see any possible reason to switch to
it now.

Spotify is excellent for music discovery, and I love the top songs and
everything. It's perfect. It's the kind of software I wish I could make
someday.

~~~
rxhernandez
Google music has been the best for me:

\- IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify)

\- I don't have to install anything

\- I don't see ads on youtube

\- it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it

\- I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the
artist/song isn't super popular

~~~
n1000
On T-mobile in the US, spotify streaming doesn’t count against mobile data
quota ;)

~~~
dingaling
But if a fixed-line provider did that it would be considered a violation of
network neutrality and the pitchforks come out.

How can a future challenger to Spotify compete in such am environment? etc

~~~
millstone
Well there's 45 services that already do, and it doesn't seem particularly
hard to get on that list:

[https://www.t-mobile.com/offer/music-freedom-
list.html](https://www.t-mobile.com/offer/music-freedom-list.html)

------
rahoulb
I tried Apple Music for 6 months, and spent that time diligently training it
to my tastes. My latest "favourites mix" had 12 songs that I had to mark as
"dislike" after all that training. Likewise the "for you"playlists are garbage
- just because I like a couple of songs by guitar bands doesn't mean I want to
listen to hours and hours of them.

Apple Music on Apple Watch 3 is amazing - leaving a phone at home is strangely
liberating.

But, for me, the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think
about what I want to listen to - I can pick an artist and listen or I can be
lazy and just hit a Daily Mix which plays stuff I really like. Asking Apple
Music to play "some reggae" or whatever invariably ends up with it playing a
load of music I really don't like, even after all that training.

~~~
bkor
> But, for me, the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think
> about what I want to listen to

I haven't tried Apple Music but I do listen to Spotify. What is highly dislike
is that it's so terrible about suggesting or playing songs. I don't think it's
good at all. Further, the shuffle doesn't seem to shuffle well enough (often
seems to play in a similar order).

I'm terrible at knowing artists, song names, etc. I've noticed people liking
Spotify often know the names or various artists plus create their own
playlists. I think it's all terrible.

Same for e.g. listening to songs. I might be in the mood for some salsa songs.
Spotify will have me listen to Salsa songs for hours on end. It should be way
smarter. Some slow songs, then some quicker.. but not too sudden, etc.

I don't want to pay for Spotify because of this. It's terrible in song
selection IMO.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
"I don't want to pay for Spotify because of this. It's terrible in song
selection IMO"

I'm the opposite. I know their song suggestion can leave something to be
desired, as it is obviously based on your recent listening instead of
suggesting from your entire playlist suggestion. But then again, that also
gives me ways to tweak it by simply sampling a variety of music during the
week - which I do when I'm searching for new songs. I rarely know band/song
names, and can still find music.

Their song selection is generally good for folks that are sometimes listening
to odd music. One of my favorite artists has less than 55k plays on the most
popular song - and they suggest this sort of thing to me instead of
continually suggesting "popular" music.

The most jarring thing (to me) was the ads, which were solved by paying a
small fee each month. Bonus points for downloads.

------
freddie_mercury
Spotify (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in.

Google Play (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in.

Apple Music has been available from day one.

They also have country-specific pricing, instead of expecting the right price
for Americans to be the right price for a developing country.

~~~
ashraymalhotra
This. This is the only reason I continue to tolerate Apple Music. My job
requires me to travel extensively across countries. With Apple Music, I can be
assured that music in my playlists works across countries.

When am in the US, I honestly find YouTube Music to be the best (probably
since it has a lot of my listening data already hence gets the prediction
accurate). But Apple Music still remains the only music subscription I pay
for.

~~~
robert_foss
If you pay for Spotify in a region, the selection should be the same wherever
you physically are.

------
hprotagonist
I have very few complaints about apple music, and most of them are because I
regard the Atomic Unit Of Music to be the studio album.

1\. No Tool. :(

2\. No easy way to reorder search results to be album first.

3\. Date of original album release is buried.

4\. Hard to filter by "studio album" vs "live album" vs "compilation album" vs
"greatest hits album".

5\. Siri can't help; "play me the third album by the rolling stones" doesn't
help, and neither do i have a voice-controlled "tell me what the album names
by X are and let me pick one" interface.

My impression is that no streaming service does these things.

~~~
chrisseaton
What do you mean by it doesn't have a tool?

I do think a lot of these services should do more to prioritise the canonical
version of a track. When I search for a popular track I don't want to see an
ocean of compilations before the original album it came from.

~~~
vshastry
He means the band Tool. And yes, it is a shame their music isn’t on Apple
Music.

~~~
discreditable
Not on Google Play music either.

~~~
midasz
Not on Spotify either.

~~~
EADGBE
Or Amazon Prime Music/Unlimited.

This is the other problem with streaming services.

"tens of millions" of songs still leaves out some glaring omissions for a lot
of people.

------
ClassyJacket
Sad. The UI of Spotify is much better - less taps to get where you want to go,
dark theme, and it actually has song handoff between devices and a dedicated
desktop app for the Mac, none of which Apple Music has. I can't help but think
this is because of Apple's monopolistic practice of only allowing Apple Music
to integrate with Siri.

~~~
dfischer
Apple Music is on desktop

~~~
electricslpnsld
> Apple Music is on desktop

Not in a dedicated app. The integration with iTunes is a bit of a mess and
brings all of the iTunes weirdness along for the ride. I really wish Apple
would break iTunes apart...

~~~
drb91
Heh, my biggest complaint wih spotify is that I can’t use it with my carefully
curated itunes library, including my many smart playlists.

~~~
kiliankoe
I can definitely remember this being possible a while back when I was using
Spotify.

~~~
drb91
Yea, it still forces you to listen through the spotify player rather than
itunes (which is not _at all_ surprising) and they never supported smart
playlists.

Again, not surprising, but certainly enough for me to prefer apple music. The
player is just way, way better for my needs.

~~~
drb91
Also (forgot before I can’t edit) spotify has no way of syncing your music not
in their catalogue to your other devices. So my many bootlegs, mixtapes, and
music not in the spotify catalogue is a real PITA to manage across devices,
and is not even possible in some cases (eg I can’t think of a way to listen to
my mixtapes on the xbox spotify player).

Meanwhile apple has the “itunes match” program (...I think?) which solves
this.

------
heavymark
I like I'm sure many predicted this would be inevitable regardless how better
one product is over another. At the end of the day Spotify can't compete with
Apple's budget, and music streaming isn't a long term profitable business on
it's own. I love Apple and deep into their ecosystem. However, certainly not a
fan of Apple Music. When using on the Mac iTunes is rather horrific since
everytime I search it searches local music rather than Apple Music or vice
versa, or its in the Podcast tab, etc. They need a dedicated Music app for Mac
and universal search without the iTunes store. I'm sure they are moving
towards this but until then rather miserable. The Spotify app isn't as clean
looking but is much more practical and enjoyable to use. Finally, Apple is
about curated playlists, where is Spotify is about algorithms which in my
experience is the better route. So while Spotify maybe the better product, at
the end of the day, Apple Music is more seamless for people in the Apple
Ecosystem of Siri, HomePod, AppleTV and all and in the end will win out. Let's
hope Spotify stay's long enough to make Apple Music better.

Forgot to add, that personally, I love YouTube Music. The algorithms and
search and pool of countless remixes, live performances and old videos/music
not on other places is unmatched. It lacks the Apple Ecosystem benefit, but is
a hidden gem

~~~
remir
I'm personally getting tired of ecosystem lock-ins, so Spotify is a great
alternative because they're available everywhere. Also, the UX of Spotify
Connect is great.

~~~
TheArcane
> Also, the UX of Spotify Connect is great.

The color scheme and layouts are beautiful.

------
fortythirteen
I have grown increasingly disgusted with Spotify pushing a political agenda
inside their app. The last place I want to have politics shoved in my face is
my music streaming service, whether I agree with the stance or not. Yet it
seems, at least once a month, the banner of the desktop app is decidedly
pushing a playlist promoting one side of the political agenda du jour.

With them recently banning the personal playlist of a conservative Australian
senator, simply because they don't agree with his politics[0], I'm about ready
to jump ship.

[0] - [https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-
ban...](https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-bans-cory-
bernardis-australia-day-playlist-ng-b88718551z)

~~~
Jonnax
"pushing political agenda" "politics shoved in my face" "don't agree with his
politics"

It's always the same boring meme phrases. I know that having a persecution
complex is effective politicking but it comes off immature.

I read the article you posted. You should understand that an individual artist
is more important to Spotify than an individual user to Spotify. Especially
artists like: Men At Work and Savage Garden

The playlist was called Australian Conservatives and was a public playlist. If
you're advertising it, then it's not personal. Normally if you want music
associated with your brand, a company or political party has to pay. And
artists have the right to refuse.

It looks like Darren Hayes posted this:

Hi @CoryBernadi and @AuConservatives. I do not want to be associated with you,
your party or your views. Remove my music from this stunt or expect contact
from my publisher.

Responding like this doesn't really work in the real world:

“Get over yourself darrenhayes. Music is for everyone.” Bernardi tweeted.

~~~
fortythirteen
> "pushing political agenda" "politics shoved in my face" "don't agree with
> his politics"

Spotify has company created playlists specifically for the travel ban and
DACA, permanently in the Browse section. Yes, they are pushing their agenda in
users' faces.

Why not just remove the complaining artists? Why remove the entire playlist?

Do you believe that if the political roles were reversed between politician
and artist that Spotify would nuke the whole playlist? I sure don't.

You may agree with Spotify's politics, but that doesn't invalidate my point.

~~~
Jonnax
There's two things here.

Spotify as a company can push whatever politics they want to. It's a business
decision, if it loses them users then it's upto their management to determine
whether that was a good option or not.

You should accept that Spotify is a "liberal" company either as a stance of
the management or as who they see their most engaged users to be. Everything
doesn't need to appeal to you.

Saying they're shoving their politics in your face is hyperbole. If I read a
business focussed newspaper, they're likely to have articles that are anti-
climate change. I don't agree but I'm in their house.

>Why not just remove the complaining artists? Why remove the entire playlist?

[https://press.spotify.com/uk/about/](https://press.spotify.com/uk/about/)
"Number of playlists: Over 2 billion"

2 billion playlists, why expend the manpower to do that? Paying moderators
isn't free.

>Do you believe that if the political roles were reversed between politician
and artist that Spotify would nuke the whole playlist? I sure don't.

Why don't you describe an actual hypothetical scenario?

That a politician created a playlist called Liberal Music and some artists
complained. Saying that they want nothing to do with the politician and their
party. Also at least one artist indicated that they'd contact their publisher
to take action.

Why wouldn't Spotify just take the playlist down? It's the easy action.
Playlists are just lists of songs, the songs are still there.

~~~
fortythirteen
> Spotify as a company can push whatever politics they want to.

If you read my other comments in this thread you'll see I agree.

> You should accept that Spotify is a "liberal" company either as a stance of
> the management or as who they see their most engaged users to be. Everything
> doesn't need to appeal to you.

It is a company owned by liberals. Semantics, but important ones. Also you
pose a strawman. I never suggested they be obligated to appeal to me, just
that their political posturing doesn't and that I'm nearing the point where I
will also exercise my free will and leave.

> Saying they're shoving their politics in your face is hyperbole. If I read a
> business focussed newspaper, they're likely to have articles that are anti-
> climate change.

Not a proper comparison. I get a newspaper _specifically to read about
politics_. I don't do the same for a music streaming service, as much as you
probably don't want a plumber coming to your house and lecturing you on how
Trump's America is fantastic.

> Why wouldn't Spotify just take the playlist down? It's the easy action.

Why has the decided soft, yet ham-handed, censorship of conservatives become a
systemic issue with online services, be it Facebook, Twitter or even Spotify?
Why does the far left need even their music streaming service to be an echo
chamber?

~~~
dragonwriter
> It is a company owned by liberals. Semantics, but important ones.

A company is a tool of it's owners, everyone else involved is paid agents of
the ownership. The distinction you draw isn't important, it's meaningless.

~~~
fortythirteen
The company is a tool for streaming music. The politics are extracurricular.

When I go to Spotify's site, they sell me music streaming. Their company
tagline isn't "Spotify: unlimited music and social justice activism".

~~~
dragonwriter
> The company is a tool for streaming music

You've confused the _company_ (which is a tool for serving the interests of
the owners) with the _product the company sells_ (which is a tool for
streaming music.).

~~~
fortythirteen
I highly doubt that "political activism" will appear anywhere on Spotify's IPO
application.

------
paul7986
I’ve been an unhappy subscriber since it started. Siri commands and Apple
Music are essential when driving and thus I’m stuck with it(only use it while
driving which is frequently).

After three years it still sucks for me because...

\- bloated UX

\- try asking Siri to play all your “Recently Added,” songs without creating a
new playlist.

\- how can I discover new music when driving? I can ask Siri play similar
songs to current song playing but what I need is Apple Music to shuffle all my
songs and randomly add new/similar songs that compare to my entire and
eclectic song playlist.

\- there are instances where Apple Music/Siri plays non-copyrighted songs ie.
cheesy horrible and lame covers of public domain Xmas songs. Makes me feel
ripped off

Spotify is better but totally unsafe to use while driving vs. Crapple Music.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Google Assistant will happily play you Spotify songs on Android. Obviously
Apple won't allow integration with third party software on iPhone.

~~~
cassieramen
I am happily surprised google assistant not only plays from Spotify but let's
you set Spotify as your default music service. No "ask Spotify to play..."
just a simple "play..."

I feel like Apple bullies people into inferior experiences.

------
jakereps
> Glob­ally, how­ever, Spo­tify re­mains in a league of its own, with nearly
> twice as many paid sub­scribers than No. 2 Apple, and slightly faster
> sub­scriber growth.

I mean Spotify has been around a lot longer. Is it weird that new users aren't
growing as fast if it already held the majority?

------
rahulchowdhury
I switched from Apple Music to Spotify solely because of Spotify's awesome
recommendation engine.

Can't even think of switching back to Apple Music after witnessing Spotify's
magic.

I guess the recommendation system will keep on giving an extra edge to Spotify
over the years to come.

------
KozmoNau7
Spotify has a desktop application for Linux. Apple Music doesn't. So Spotify
wins, right out of the gate.

Add to this that Spotify's auto playlists are a hell of a lot better than
Apple's, and I really don't understand why people bother with Apple Music.

------
KirinDave
This is depressing, and I don't get why customers are so fanatically loyal to
a service that's consistently trailing the industry in features, security, and
has a bad habit of deleting people's music or "forgetting" their accounts.

------
freewizard
One big disadvantage of Apple Music to me is I still can't listen to Apple
Music through a browser without iTunes easily.

It's just so much more convenient you can just use a incognito Chrome session
on friend's PC and start streaming, as comparing to
install/logout/login/logout (which is referred as "mobile/app first"
experience nowadays).

------
seanvk
Spotify is available via Discord, Xbox, and Playstation. The diversity of
clients is key for me. Apple Music has at most what an Android App?

~~~
jpalomaki
Also works with Chrome Cast, which is pretty affordable way to build multiroom
setup if you already have some audio equipment around.

------
mexicanandre
In Australia apple music is given away for free with a few of our mobile
providers for free. Is the same in the USA? I dont know a single apple music
user in Australia. Spotify is a much better user experience.

~~~
pxeboot
I have never seen a US carrier offer Apple Music. T-Mobile does provide a
Netflix subscription with some plans, so it's certainly possible though.

------
vm
This is a much better strategy by Apple, than Microsoft’s strategy against
Netscape in the 90’s. Here, Apple charges consumers the market price [1].
Microsoft on the other hand gave away its browser for FREE. Free is better for
consumers but it sparked antitrust backlash. Apple just let time play to its
distribution advantage.

[1] The $ are the same for consumers but not for Spotify. It loses margin
because of the App Store’s high take rate. As a result, Apple Music makes more
than Spotify on a per consumer basis, even at the same price

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

~~~
hamandcheese
IIRC you can’t sign up for Spotify inside the app, so they wouldn’t pay the
App Store tax.

------
putlake
I rarely read the full thread on HN but read this one to see if anyone had
mentioned Echo or Alexa-enabled devices. Surprising that no one did, esp given
how many they have sold.

We are an Apple household primarily but also have a Google Home and recently
bought an Alexa-enabled car charger (Anker/Roav Viva). The only service that
will work across the board is Spotify. In that regard Spotify is like Netflix
-- available on _every_ device.

~~~
ethiclub
Not to sanction further consolidation or oligopoly issues, but Spotify has
long seemed like a logical acquisition for Amazon.

\- Fix Prime's song catalogue size issue (still an issue?)

\- Grab massive market share and upsell/bundle other services

\- Provide bargaining power to Spotify \- Get access to very advanced IP

\- Integrate with voice ui further (i.e. smarter voice commands including play
list creations, complex requests and vague requests)

\- Clock / alarm integration for music upon wake from echo/dot

\- Fix profitability concerns of Spotify's revenue stream

\- Provide high quality music, podcast services etc. alongside their soon-to-
be-formidable film offering

\- Use Spotify's algorithms and data to potentially improve film/tv
recommendations and discovery

\- Provide the gateway to becoming a record label, thereby cutting out the
middle men à la netflix/Amazon film strategy of content creation

Would anyone more knowledgeable be able to comment further or point out flaws
with this theory?

~~~
simongr3dal
I’m definitely not more knowledgeable, but in my experience Amazon hasn’t been
as good as e.g. Apple at making their services accessible internationally.
It’s getting slightly better now with Twitch Prime and Amazon Prime video,
which is in the same category. But I fear being neglected if they made an
acquisition.

------
whalesalad
Gonna be hard to pull me from Spotify. With the Capital One Quicksilver 50%
off deal I get the family plan for $7.99 a month (5 users for less than the
regular price for 1 user)

At times I’m tempted to give Apple Music a shot because I admire some of the
UI differences – but my wife is an Android user and she loves Spotify as well.

It’s really the most well-rounded and accesssible solution right now.

~~~
MarkSweep
There exists an Android app for Apple Music:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music)

Anyone have any idea if it is any good?

------
ksec
It is interesting how many thinks Spotify is better if it was available in the
country, and yet people out of convenience still choose Apple Music.

I have heard Apple Music in UK or US are great. That is when only one
languages is being used, and mostly English.

Whenever Apple Music has to deal with two lanagueges, it sucks.

[https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-
mus...](https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-music-
japanese-metadata-mess/)

And it is not only Japanese, but most of South East Asia. if Apple Music
already wasn't better then Spotify, this make it worst.

In the old days, Apple was all about being the best to win. Not it has become
being good enough to win, and to make the matter worst they stop improving it
after they won.

------
statictype
Every year I used to go to Spotify's site, see that they don't support my
country, leave and check again later.

Apple Music was the first music subscription service to work in my country and
did so pretty much as soon as it came out.

A few months later it got support for my Sonos.

Done and done.

Spotify may be better but I'll never know now.

------
ritarong
Grooveshark :(

------
jdlyga
I was a subscriber to Apple Music for almost a year, until I realized I wasn't
discovering music anymore. It's very nice having a combined streaming and
local library. But that alone isn't worth it. I've discovered so many new
artists and songs through Spotify using their suggested playlists, related
artists, Spotify radio, etc.

You also can't beat their multi-device interoperability. I can use my iPhone
to listen, but control playback through the linux desktop app, for example.

------
graeme
I tried Apple music, then realized it cancels the ability to sync music from
itunes.

Why?......

I immediately shut off apple music and icloud music library once I learned
that. Which is a shame, as I'd love to be able to stream from my watch.

But, none of the other music services destroy the functionality of my phone.

Yes, I'm sure I could learn how to use icloud music library. But I don't want
to. I just want to be able to take a file from my computer and put it on my
phone. I guess that's power user behaviour these days.

------
MarkMc
Can someone explain why? Does Apple music have significantly more songs? Is it
significantly cheaper? Or is it simply because it's the default music app on
iPhone?

~~~
ancarda
The sole reason I use Spotify is it’s fantastic (community created) playlists
and great recommendations. Once Apple Music catches up to that, I may switch
to it because Spotify’s UI is truly awful.

I want to go back to Apple Music. I only left because someone showed me some
amazing playlists and pretty soon Spotify started recommending great songs to
me.

------
fredsted
I use Apple Music for various reasons, but where I am (Denmark) _everyone_
uses Spotify.

------
shmerl
I'd stick with Bandcamp and other DRM-free FLAC stores.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I really hate that you were downvoted for this. It may be only a single
sentence, but I think you're correct to bring up the fact that Spotify and
Apple Music both don't represent the entire music industry. These two entities
are merely soulless peddlers of the Big 5. There are substantially important
pockets of the music industry that do not exist in this narrow realm.

~~~
siquick
> These two entities are merely soulless peddlers of the Big 5

Rubbish - the vast majority of music on both platforms is not released on any
of the big 5 record labels.

Apple Music has so many playlists featuring underground artists and labels.
Spotify Discover Weekly never gives me any big 5 music.

The only time people get "peddled' the big 5 tracks is when they want to
listen to them.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
You know for a fact that the only reason either of these music services exist
is because the Big 5 are in on it. Their catalog is what carries the services,
and is what makes them profitable.

There is no Spotify or Apple Music without the Big 5. You cannot say the same
of Bandcamp.

~~~
siquick
Why is that a bad thing? It's a positive that the big 5 are enabling smaller
artists labels to have distribution to new listeners.

I love Bandcamp for downloading WAV files for DJ purposes but as a streaming
service, it just isn't that great simply because of the lack of breadth of the
catalogue.

------
adamnemecek
And here I was thinking they were fighting a lost battle.

~~~
on_and_off
How so ? Isn't Apple Music Pre-installed on all iOS devices ? That's a huge
advantage that most new services don't have.

(I realize Play Music has the same advantage on Android but Google has
completely failed to even try to promote this service)

~~~
swozey
I cannot think of anyone in my life ever using itunes at pool parties, on
boats, etc. It's always Spotify and lately every so often it's GPM. I recently
switched from GPM back to Spotify. It's everything I need in that specific
app.

~~~
matwood
I tried Spotify years ago and didn’t like it. None of my close circle of
friends use Spotify either.

I used GPM for a couple of years and recently switched to AM. It’s hidden in
the UI, but you can buy a year in AM for $99. If you look around you can find
a $100 iTunes gift card for $80 (sometimes cheaper) pushing the cost of AM
down a bit more.

------
ThomW
I love Spotify, but it bugs me that I can't use Siri to launch music from it.
It's the only thing Apple Music has over Spotify imo.

------
KevanM
I use Google Play Music because it has a block explicit songs switch, which is
perfect for family journeys.

~~~
dx034
Spotify has that as well, they included explicit warnings a while back.

~~~
KevanM
Really, that was one of the reasons I left. I might look again.

~~~
KevanM
Oh, they mark content as explicit but don't filter it out.

I don't see what the technical issue is, if I apply a filter, I get the clean
version or it skips the track - if I don't have it on, I get the explicit
version.

------
fnordsensei
Does Apple Music offer something comparable to Spotify's Discover Weekly
playlists?

~~~
rahoulb
They have a weekly "favourites mix", "new music mix", and "chill mix".

In my experience the choices that Apple Music make are extremely poor, even
after months of training. Spotify seems to know what I like, Apple Music has
no idea.

(Also Apple Music has nothing like the Daily Mixes, which also work really
well for me; it suggests a daily set of playlists for you, but again, Apple
Music doesn't seem to have learnt what I like, so these are pretty useless)

------
qwerty456127
BTW why won't some business fairness commission attack Apple for using their
cellphone market domination to thwart competition and promote other products
of their own like iMusic (e.g. the way they did with Microsoft when MS started
shipping Internet Explorer built in Windows systems)?

~~~
rahoulb
Don't get me wrong - as I've stated elsewhere on here, I don't like Apple
Music and it annoys me greatly.

But Apple Music is only usable with an optional subscription payment and can
easily be uninstalled (pseudo-uninstalled) from an iPhone. It does integrate
with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it streams music on the
Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will not) do. But it's not
essential to the function of the phone. And the iPhone has a 30-40% market
share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are).

MS was punished for including Internet Explorer for free and then tying it
into the innards of the OS so it could not be removed. And Windows had an
80-90% market share at the time.

~~~
qwerty456127
> It does integrate with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it
> streams music on the Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will
> not) do.

Any idea why? I think they would probably add this if Apple would provide a
reasonable way to. Does anybody know if Siri and Apple Watch expose nice APIs
that would let you integrate your iPhone app with them?

> And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on
> where you are).

Although the iPhone-vs-Android comparison can seem to be in favour of Android,
Android means many independent manufacturers competing and much more free
market for the apps. No single phone manufacturer but Apple has such a market
share, having 30-40-50% of the market under unconditional control of a single
company means a way more of actual power and commercial value per percent for
them than if it was about shares of multiple companies running same
technologies summed.

Here (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975)
) is what I have been told in a neighbour thread: "With the iOS market share
hovering slightly below 50% in the US, it's iMessage that is the main
messenger, at least where I live... I don't use Whatsapp nor was I ever
invited by someone to use it, but I heard it's basically the iMessage
equivalent in the EU and in other places where the iOS market share is lower."

I don't mean to argue nor am I a proponent of regulations. Just sharing
thoughts. Thank you for the answer.

~~~
rahoulb
I see no reason for Apple not to allow music access for Siri - they have
opened it up to other categories of app but have left music out and the only
reason I can think of it to prevent competition.

I've heard conflicting reports about the state of the streaming APIs on the
Apple Watch. Certainly, it's Apple's standard playbook to test an API with
their internal products first before releasing it to others, and as the Apple
Watch 3 is only a few months old, I will give them the benefit of the doubt
here.

I'm not sure about your point on market-share. Apple may be the biggest single
phone manufacturer, but they still can't bully people the way Microsoft did,
because 60-70% of people aren't using them - it's platform share that counts
here.

(And yes, the majority of my contacts are on iPhones, but when it comes to
group messaging I use WhatsApp because that's the only way I can be sure not
to leave anyone out).

------
ggg9990
If Microsoft bundling a browser is antitrust, why isn’t this?

~~~
saratogacx
MSFT wasn't busted for bundling the browser but it was busted for forcing
OEM's to not include any 3rd party browser. To get the OEM pricing for the OS,
you had to agree that your OS image would not include any software that would
compete with IE.

