Spotify for Apple TV should not be expected anytime soon

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Have you been keeping your fingers crossed for Spotify for Apple TV? If so, you’ll be disappointed to learn that a Spotify tvOS app has been “down prioritized,” with a company executive stating that a release supporting tvOS should not be expected anytime soon. It’s unclear why the Swedish startup does not want to support the Apple TV, more so given its rivalry with Apple in the music-streaming space.

Asked by a customer in a comment posted on the code sharing website GitHub if there will be a tvOS framework supporting Spotify for Apple TV and when such an app might see the light of day, Samuel Erdtman, who is a Product Owner at Spotify, said that “support for tvOS has been down prioritized.”

“You should not expect a release supporting it any time soon. I’m sorry about that,” he added.

One possibility is that Spotify doesn’t prefer Apple’s changed terms for In-App Subscriptions that requires developers to share 30 percent of subscription revenue with the Cupertino firm.

After a subscriber has accumulated one year of paid service, the revenue share changes from the 70:30 split to the 85:15 split, meaning developers get to keep eighty percent of proceeds to themselves after each subscriber’s first year.

Another possibility could be Spotify’s critique of the App Store subscription sharing scheme and blocking of external subscription links. Spotify’s answer: they have raised the price of subscriptions in its mobile app for the iPhone and iPad.

Spotify for iOS does support AirPlay so Apple TV owners can stream music to their TV, but a full-on tvOS app would have been much appreciated, that’s for sure.

Apple Music launched in June 2015 and has 17 million paid accounts while Spotify, which launched in September 2008, currently has 40 million subscribers.

Source: GitHub via AppAdvice