With Apple’s new audio features in watchOS 6, it’s time for Spotify to ship or shut up

Bradley Chambers for 9to5Mac:

In watchOS 5, Apple offered streaming on Apple Podcasts and Apple Music, but it left out the ability for third-party developers to access it. Spotify used Apple Watch as one of the reasons Apple isn’t play fair with how it treats its own products vs how it interacts with competitors. I argued that Spotify wants all the benefits of Apple’s platform, but without giving Apple any revenue. With the new streaming API for watchOS 6, it’s time for Spotify to ship or shut up…
With watchOS 5, Spotify could have built an Apple Watch app that synced playlists offline (similar to how Overcast syncs podcasts). They still haven’t…
Spotify could have built a tvOS app years ago. They could have shipped an Apple Watch app with offline playback last fall. With watchOS 6, they’ll be able to ship an app for Apple Watch that allows its customers to stream Spotify over LTE. My guess is that they won’t. They’ll likely still complain that Siri can’t work with HomePod despite them not shipping Siri Shortcuts support in their app. It seems that Spotify would rather complain that Apple doesn’t allow them to do third-party billing during the iOS launch screen instead of actually building features for their customers.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s easier to litigate than to compete. Spotify is a lazy company.