Spotify iOS Users Face Volume Hurdles on Connected Devices

Following disputes involving App Store fees, update approvals, and much else, Spotify and Apple are now clashing over a change affecting volume control features.

A number of far-from-thrilled Spotify users just recently started taking to social media to criticize the apparent change, which is specifically impacting Spotify Connect on iOS devices.

That’s the relatively little-discussed official name for the listening option through which one can remotely control (including via smartphones) audio playback on devices such as smart speakers, gaming consoles, and smart TVs.

But at least for iPhone users, this control isn’t quite as robust as it was in the not-so-distant past. According to Spotify, which has already updated its main Connect guide to address the development, that’s because “Apple has discontinued the technology” in question.

While Apple didn’t appear to have commented publicly on the change at the time of writing, both Spotify itself and ticked-off listeners have pointed to a new inability to control connected devices’ volume with the actual iPhone volume buttons.

Unable to use those physical buttons to adjust volume at once, listeners must now give the same buttons a tap to bring up an in-app slider, Spotify described in more words. When outside the app and listening in the background, the volume buttons will activate an adjustment notification that, with another (on-screen) tap, then activates the slider.

The streaming giant also disclosed that it will “work with them [Apple] on a solution.” However, it doesn’t look as though a near-term resolution is in the cards. Per TechCrunch, beginning on September 3rd, Spotify will direct all its iOS users to begin utilizing the mentioned in-app slider.

Predictably, given the marathon nature of the underlying dispute – and Spotify’s historical success in addressing the Apple Music developer’s alleged anticompetitive practices in the EU – Spotify has floated the possibility that Apple might be violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA) with the volume change.

Without diving too far into that multifaceted law, Apple (along with Alphabet, Meta, ByteDance, and others) was in September of 2023 deemed a “gatekeeper” under the DMA. That classification gave said gatekeepers a limited amount of time to comply with the entirety of the measure; on cue, the European Commission in June of 2024 formally accused Apple of DMA violations.

Meanwhile, there are different EU regulatory headaches yet for Apple, which continues to appeal the currently $1.99 billion penalty it was ordered to pay in March for allegedly “abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps.”

This massive fine stemmed from an investigation set in motion by a 2019 competition complaint from Spotify. Consequently, while it perhaps doesn’t need saying, the Stockholm-based streaming platform and CEO Daniel Ek possess considerable sway in this department.

Moving forward, it’ll be worth closely monitoring the volume control dust-up in terms of its potential to spur further EU investigations and to set the stage for an even wider Apple-Spotify rift.