Mark Mahaney, a Wall Street analyst who follows Spotify for investment bank Evercore ISI, tested the new audiobook service. He found it cumbersome, requiring him to enter his payment details even though Spotify already had them. He complained to Paul Vogel, Spotify’s chief financial officer, in an email.
“Why is he so bad?” Mr. Mahani wrote. “And can you fix it?”
When Spotify later shipped an update to the app with features not related to audiobooks, Apple rejected it. App Store reviewers told Spotify that viewing audiobooks, which had previously been approved, violated rules requiring apps to use Apple’s payment system to unlock new features, according to Spotify.
Mr. Team Zicherman changed the email customers would receive and removed the previously included purchase button. They replaced it with an email that gave customers a link to search for Spotify audiobook titles.
Apple declined to switch Spotify days later, saying offering customers a button to receive an email about other purchase options would be against App Store rules. An Apple spokesperson said Spotify also featured an inconsistency in an external link in its app, which sent people to a different web address than Apple approved. Spotify claimed that the link had nothing to do with audiobooks and that the problem had been fixed.
Zeicherman said his team consulted with Spotify’s legal staff before deciding to exclude the email phase from the audiobook process. Instead, they asked listeners to visit Spotify’s website to purchase a book.
“What we have now is really a dead end,” Zeicherman said.
On Monday, Spotify claimed Apple refused to redesign Zeicherman’s latest. He and a team of product designers, engineers and lawyers worked until early Tuesday on four more options. They went through Spotify’s website and instructions for more information on audiobooks, putting the burden on customers to go online and figure out how to complete a purchase. Spotify said the changes were approved by Apple.
The home page now says: “You cannot purchase in-app audiobooks”. “We know it’s not perfect.”
