The streaming music giant Spotify has announced that its planned support of AirPlay 2 has been put on hold. According to a Spotify representative, this is due to compatibility issues with audio drivers.
This is a real shame as AirPlay 2 offers many benefits over the previous version of the AirPlay protocol. For example multi-room support, lower latency with reduced buffering and native support for Siri voice control.
Interestingly Spotify has been one of the most vocal critics of Apple’s ecosystem in recent years. They have gone as far as to file a complaint with the European Commission claiming anti-trust concerns. The complaint focused on App Store fees and claiming that Apple locks competitors out of certain products and features.
In recent years Apple has opened up the HomePod, Siri and Apple Watch to third-party music services. A lack of access to these products was a big part of the reason that Spotify filed the complaint in the first place. But since then, Spotify has continually held out on adding support and continued to rail against Apple. It isn’t clear at this stage what Spotify wants, aside from a reduced or zero commission split on in-app purchases.
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