With a lot of focus lately on how smartphone app developers are treated on Apple's and Google's app stores, Google has decided right now is a great time to announce more stringent app store billing rules. A new post from the official Android Developer Blog promises a crackdown on in-app billing that sounds like it's targeted at big streaming services like Netflix and Spotify.
With Spotify Lite, you can play millions of songs, for free. The Spotify Lite app is small, so you'll save space on your phone, and save data when using it on the go. Play your favorite songs and artists - Discover new music - Enjoy playlists made just for you - Small app, installs fast - Keep track of storage and data - Works on all Android phones - Works in all network conditions. At the same time, to download an older version of the app, pick your iPod Touch 5th gen, unlock it, and find App Store app on your iPod Touch. From there, search Spotify, and tap “download”. If App Store straight notify you “you need to update your iOS software to download this app”, your Apple ID never purchased Spotify back in iOS 9 days.
Google's post really beats around the bush trying to sugar-coat this announcement, but it starts off by saying, 'We’ve always required developers who distribute their apps on Play to use Google Play’s billing system if they offer in-app purchases of digital goods, and pay a service fee from a percentage of the purchase.' This rule has not been enforced, though, and a lot of big developers have just ignored Google's billing requirements. Today, Netflix and Spotify don't use Google's in-app billing and instead kick new accounts out to a Web browser, where the companies can use PayPal or direct credit card processing to dodge Google's 30-percent fees.
'We have clarified the language in our Payments Policy to be more explicit that all developers selling digital goods in their apps are required to use Google Play’s billing system,' Google continues. 'For those who already have an app on Google Play that requires technical work to integrate our billing system, we do not want to unduly disrupt their roadmaps and are giving a year (until September 30, 2021) to complete any needed updates.'
That's basically the meat of the blog post: everybody needs to use Google billing by this time next year. A look at the 'Payments Policy' shows examples like 'subscription services' that offer things like 'music' and 'video.' It also warns readers at the top that 'changes are coming to this policy!' and that 'any existing app that is currently using an alternative billing system will need to remove it to comply with this update.' Spotify for family free trial.
Advertisement
Google draws a clear distinction between Android and iOS by pointing out that on Android, developers have a 'choice of stores' and that most Android devices ship with multiple app stores. Google mentions twice that 'each store is able to decide its own business model and consumer features' with the implication being that if developers want to be on Google Play, which has 2 billion active users, they're going to have to start following the rules or look elsewhere.
Better third-party app store support in Android 12?
One other tidbit in this post is news of an Android 12 feature: 'We will be making changes in Android 12 (next year’s Android release) to make it even easier for people to use other app stores on their devices while being careful not to compromise the safety measures Android has in place. We are designing all this now and look forward to sharing more in the future!'
Currently, installing a second app store requires a few extra checkboxes, but given that stepping outside of Google's walled garden really does expose users to more threats, the two warning messages don't seem excessive. Google regularly publishes stats comparing the malware rate of Google Play-only devices versus devices that have installed apps from outside the Play Store. While Google Play is by no means perfect, Google is one of the few app store operators big enough to put every app through some kind of vetting process, and as a result, users have been anywhere from 5 to 10 times more likely to get malware outside the Play Store than inside it for the past two years.
The current app store install process is not that arduous. If you're downloading something like F-Droid (an open source app store), first Chrome will give you a warning that this type of file (an APK) can harm your device, which you can click through. If you've never installed an app from the browser before, you'll be forwarded to the device settings so you can flip the 'allow installs from source' checkbox for Chrome. Then you can install the app store. Android requires any app that installs apps to be given the 'install unknown apps' checkbox, so you'll also need to flip this setting to allow the new app store to install apps.
Advertisement This move to make third-party app stores easier to use makes a bit more sense as a response to Fortnite's developer, Epic, which is currently suing Google over its alternative app store policies. 'Directly downloading Fortnite on an Android device can involve a dozen steps, requiring the user to change default settings and bravely click through multiple dire warnings,' Epic's antitrust lawsuit reads. 'And even if a persistent user manages to install a competing app store, Google prevents such stores from competing on equal footing with the Google Play Store by blocking them from offering basic functions, such as automatic updating of apps in the background.'
Like any lawsuit, Epic's filing is a bit blustery. By my count, installing a third-party app store takes five taps, not 'a dozen steps.' While any pre-installed app store (in the locked-down system partition) can install app updates, Epic is right that user-downloaded app stores can't automatically update apps. Letting downloaded apps install new code in the background without user consent sounds just a little scary, but maybe Google could add a highly privileged 'app store' permission for downloaded apps to make companies like Epic happy. Epic also says it doesn't like 'dire warnings' attached to these permissions either, though, and correctly informing users of how powerful an app store permission would be would require a pretty scary-sounding warning. Epic was already caught irresponsibly using these powers once, when the Fortnight Installer opened up Samsung devices to a security vulnerability.
Use voice commands to control music and podcasts with Amazon Alexa!
Get started
Download the Alexa app, open it, and link your Spotify account with these steps:
Tap the menu in the top-left.
Tap Settings, then Music & Podcasts.
Select Spotify, then Link account to Alexa.
Enter your Spotify account details.
Set Spotify as your default service for music and podcasts so you don’t need to specify “on Spotify” at the end of your voice commands to play music:
Spotify premium free 2 month trial. Get 3 months of Spotify Premium for free Choose PayPal from the dropdown at checkout to sign up quickly and securely. Start free trial. Offer is for Premium Individual. $9.99/after trial. Only open to users who haven’t tried Premium before. Offer valid until until July 1, 2021. Offer not available if you’ve previously tried Spotify Premium. Offer valid thru 9/30/2020 and provides 6 months Spotify Premium free from redemption date. After trial ends, you will automatically remain a Spotify Premium subscriber and your credit card will be charged monthly at the then-current Spotify Premium price. To cancel anytime go here.
Each weight has to contain uppercase, lowercase, punctuation marks, numerals, and currency signs. Furthermore, the clean & sans serif appearance of its help to combine well with the other font families. Here you can easily download the Spotify typeface after clicking on a link that given below. After that, you will be able to use it in your private works. Download circular spotify font. Font Full Name: Circular Spotify Head Bold: Font Family: Circular Spotify Head: Font Style: Bold; Font Version: Version 1.001; build 0005: Source: Official; License type: Unknown License; The way of authorization is for reference only. Please contact the copyright party to purchase commercial authorization. Font Embedding Permission: No.
Tap the menu in the top-left.
Tap Settings, then Music & Podcasts.
Tap Choose default music services. Note: To set Spotify as your default podcast service, tap Choose default podcast service.
Select Spotify and tap DONE.
Note: You still need to say “on Spotify” at the end of commands to play podcasts.
Now just ask Alexa to play something! E.g. 'Alexa, play Discover Weekly'. Check out the Amazon help site for supported languages.
Supported devices
Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Echo Spot, Amazon Echo Show, Amazon Tap, Amazon Fire TV Cube, and all Sonos players.
Need help?
Spotify App Says It& 393
For help setting up and troubleshooting, go to the Amazon help site.
Spotify App Says It& 399
Check out other articles on our support site for help with your Spotify account and payments, listening offline, or if you can’t play music.