Spotify and Apple’s war over unjust commissions on in-app purchases and subscriptions and Apple’s anti-competitive behavior goes back years. The ongoing war finally seems to be coming to an end now, and it’s all thanks to a US judge ruling against Apple.

Spotify Will Finally Get the Freedom It’s Been Fighting Apple For

In a blog post shared on Spotify Newsroom, the streaming giant revealed that it had submitted a Spotify app update to Apple that would bring multiple features to U.S. users, which was finally approved today.

This would allow Spotify to freely display the pricing information of different Premium tiers and external links to subscribe, share promotional deals within the app that’ll allow users to save money for transparency purposes, and let customers use other external payment options beyond Apple’s in-app payment system.

If you’ve tried to subscribe to Spotify Premium on your iPhone before, you may have noticed that it’s impossible to add your payment details within the app. Instead, you’re prompted to head to Spotify’s website, choose a Premium plan, and then pick one of Spotify’s accepted payment methods. Ultimately, the new changes mean that though you’ll still need to head to Spotify’s website to subscribe to a plan, you’ll be able to view pricing information for all the plans within the app and tap a button to be automatically redirected to the website.

Spotify permanently discontinued the option for accounts to pay through Apple’s in-app payment system back in 2023, since Apple would take a 30% commission on all in-app purchases. By forcing customers to sign up for Spotify Premium through its website rather than the app, Spotify could keep 100% of the payment. Not only did that help the company avoid Apple’s 30% cut, but it also meant users typically paid less, since subscriptions were often priced higher in-app to offset Apple’s commission.

In light of this, Apple decided to ban apps from linking to external sites for payments. The reason this is all changing now is thanks to an antitrust charge against Apple by the company behind Fortnite, Epic Games. In 2021, Apple was ordered to allow apps to direct users to other payment options. But the tech giant found a way around that too, by requiring app developers to apply for a special “entitlement” and introducing a new tax on purchases made outside apps.

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Fast-forward to this week, a U.S. Supreme Court judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, accused Apple of knowingly dodging the previous court orders mentioned above, and ruled that the company must make changes to the App Store, including allowing developers to redirect users to third-party websites to make payments.

While these changes are certainly far from good news for Apple, it’s the complete opposite for apps like Spotify. Although the latest version of the app is now available, the changes are still rolling out, so you might have to wait a bit before you see them on your iPhone or iPad. For instance, we checked on our end and were greeted with, “You can’t make changes to your plan or view prices in the app. We know it’s not ideal.”