11 ways Apple can kill Spotify on iPhone

6. Tell the networks to get stuffed

Some iPhone apps are crippled for no other reason than phone operators don't like them - so for example Skype is Wi-Fi only. A streaming iTunes needs 3G connectivity to be worthwhile, and as Spotify's demonstrated you can deliver 3G streaming with excellent sound quality.

7. Go social

Unlike Spotify, iTunes is a one-person system. The iPhone's support for peer to peer networking makes Spotify-style playlist sharing perfectly possible, and of course in MobileMe Apple already has a solid data sharing system that iTunes could plug into.

8. Offer it to Americans

Spotify isn't available in the US yet, and that's an awfully big market. If Apple beats Spotify to the US, Spotify's going to have a hard time fighting back - assuming, that is, that record labels are willing to play ball. US labels aren't entirely happy about Apple's market dominance; will they really want to make Apple even more powerful?

9. Don't let anyone multitask

The iPhone OS won't let third-party applications multitask, and while that's attracted criticism it does mean Spotify is damaged, possibly fatally. The iPod app keeps playing when you do other things with your iPhone. The Spotify app can't.

APPLE ONLY: Here's something only Apple applications can do: keep on going when you're doing something else

10. Hang on a bit

Despite the hype, Spotify is losing massive amounts of money. As long as its investors are happy it'll keep going, but sooner or later they're going to expect to see a return on their investment. The internet is littered with the corpses of sites and services that simply ran out of money, and Spotify could turn out to be one of them.

11. Keep Spotify locked in the App Store approval dungeon, refusing to let anybody know whether it's going to be approved or not, thereby making other developers think twice about attempting to create anything vaguely musical for the iPod and iPhone - and keep on doing it until everyone at Spotify hurls themselves off a bridge in despair.

Apple wouldn't do that… would it?