This is for the lawyers to make sense of, but in electing to be a platform provider, they should be held to higher standards in my opinion.
They did indeed have "the service" in question, it was just limited to Apple's own offering.
It's a scenario not unlike net neutrality: an infrastructure provider that is also a content provider can put themselves or select customers in a position where free market forces are hindered or suspended in order to achieve a monopoly-like status.
> They did indeed have "the service" in question, it was just limited to Apple's own offering.
Again, there's a difference between "Siri can talk to our music service" and "We have a stable public API that 3rd party vendors can hook into to connect up to a music service". They're not the same thing, and one is a lot easier than the other.
None of the above was an argument about how easy or hard it is to build a service (though Apple has enough resources to build anything they want within the scope that they operate).
Given that they are a platform provider, maybe doing the bare minimum to get their own stuff working, but not enough to get any alternatives to work, is a strategic choice on their part.
"If Homepod only works with Apple Music, more people will switch"
No, a hardware manufacturer has no requirement to support any specific software. An infrastructure provider, however, has (in MY opinion) a requirement to support what they support to an equal degree, or it amounts to… market manipulation? Something not quite fair, some kind of abuse of power which is to the detriment of all other participants in the market, customers and companies alike.
Obviously, America as of today disagrees, seeing as net neutrality is not held in very high regard.
I look forward to roads that only support Fords, water pipes that only support Nestlé water, and stairs that only support Nike shoes.
> I look forward to roads that only support Fords, water pipes that only support Nestlé water, and stairs that only support Nike shoes.
Thankfully, America is not (yet) stupid enough to let private companies build our critical infrastructure, and thankfully "voice controlled speaker" is as critical as chewing gum.
I'm sure Spotify has no problems with the knowledge of its engineers, I just found the APIs in 5 min. In fact, number 4 of this page explains your comment: https://www.timetoplayfair.com/facts/
There's a vast gulf between "Spotify was blocked" and "Apple didn't spend time and money building a service that Spotify wanted".