The stars were already aligned: a preemptive PR strike, a premium business model, and regulators questioning anti-competitive practices with relation to the iPhone’s app store — making it less and less surprising that Apple should give Spotify the green light.
See also: How Spotify can beat Microsoft [music streaming]
As of today, the iPhone version of the music streaming service is available for download from Apple’s official App Store — UK, Sweden, Spain, France, Norway and Finland only (with the U.S. debut planned for sometime next year) — while a mobile client for the Google-led Android has also launched. The app is free for either platform but you’ll need to be a Spotify premium subscriber — £10 per month in the UK — to access the service.
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Adopting a 
It’s now official: The Palm Pre will launch exclusively on Telefonica-owned O2 here in the UK.
When news first hit that three of the leading mobile phone industry organizations had agreed on micro-USB as a mobile phone charging standard, Apple was notably absent. The iPhone maker is particularly fond of its proprietary Universal Dock Connector, you know the one that enables all sorts of third-party after market device goodness and also generates the company a nice little revenue stream through its ‘Made for iPod’ program. Today, however, the European Union (EU), after applying pressure to the industry, announced that Apple had joined competitors, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Research in Motion, Samsung and others, in agreeing to switch to the micro-USB standard from next year.
