Apple pulls HMV iOS app from App Store after music downloads row
Retailer criticises Apple for demanding changes in a day, despite having approved the app last month — Apple has removed HMV's new iOS app from its App Store for enabling people to buy music downloads, despite approving the feature last month before it launched.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple has shown that App Store approval does not settle an app’s future: it approved Spotify’s app in 2009, then removed AppShopper in 2012 under a newer promotion clause. HMV’s complaint sharpens that pattern because the disputed music-download feature had already passed review before launch.
The removal puts Apple’s review process—not merely its published acceptance decision—at the center of HMV’s mobile music-sales strategy, echoing the AppShopper removal over a changed App Store clause.
First-order effects
- HMV loses its iOS route for music-download purchases until it alters the app to meet Apple’s demand, despite its prior approval.
- Apple reasserts control over which purchase flows are permitted inside App Store-distributed music apps.
Second-order effects
- Other music services selling downloads through iOS must treat prior App Store approval as reversible and review their purchase features against Apple’s enforcement decisions.
- HMV faces a weaker ability to plan promotions and product releases when an approved feature can be withdrawn on a one-day change request.
Third-order effects
- The episode points to the App Store becoming a continuing commercial gatekeeper rather than a one-time distribution review, with platform-rule changes capable of reshaping retailers’ mobile channels.
- If such enforcement becomes routine, music sellers’ leverage shifts toward the platform owner that controls app distribution and the permitted path to a sale.
The trend: Mobile storefronts are concentrating control over digital-commerce terms in the hands of app-distribution platforms, even after an app feature has been approved.