Spotify wants to get into audiobooks but says Apple is in the way

Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, wants his company to be the premier outlet in the world of audio. But when he pushed the streaming-subscription service beyond music and podcasts into audiobooks, he ran into a familiar obstacle: Apple.

Over the past month, Apple, the App Store’s gatekeeper, has rejected Spotify’s app three times, saying that its new audiobooks offering broke Apple’s rules governing how developers can communicate with customers about online purchases.

The rejections are the latest skirmish in a long-running battle between Spotify and Apple. For nearly seven years, the companies have feuded over the rules Apple imposes on apps and its practice of collecting a 30 per cent fee on the services and products that apps sell.