back to article Apple decrees Spotify worthy of iPhone

iPhone users will soon be able to enjoy their Spotify-subscription tunes over their Apple smartphones. A Spotify iPhone app has just been approved for distribution through the iTunes App Store. This news comes by way of a report from paidContent:UK, which obtained that rarest of treats: an actual confirmation message from an …

COMMENTS

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  1. Simon Buttress

    A tenner? A month??!?!?

    £120 a year to play music on my phone? F**k off!

    Presumably if you're already a premium subscriber do you get it for free no on your iPhone as well?

  2. Piggy and Tazzy
    Thumb Up

    @Simon Buttress

    Premium subscribers get it for free on the phone.

    The big difference is that they also get to store chosen playlists on the phone for offlline listening at any time too.

    A tenner a month for the opportunity to list to any track (or complete albums) from the Spotify library (at a 320 bitrate) on or offline, at home on the PC and mobile on the, erm, mobile (and without any annoying advertisements) - isn't such a bad deal in my mind.

    A dozen crap tracks from iTunes would eat up that tenner. Given the choice of iTunes or Spotify, I know which I'll be choosing as soon as it becomes available.

    Interestingly, the upcoming Grooveshark might also be giving both iTunes AND Spotify a run for their money, although I suspect it'll have a much harder time getting approved.

  3. Glen 1
    Troll

    android/iphone blinkers

    fairplay for porting to windows mobile, but no word on s60 :(

    I curently use the free service, and I would *definately* pay for spotify if i can use it while at the gym/oot and aboot.

    The only issues i have are a) catalogue size (which will only improve with time), b) i cant listen to songs that i already have as an mp3, and c) having it on my phone all the time will affect (effect?) the battery life

    Striclty speaking, fixing b) will effectivley negate a) (at least for me)

    £120 a year stacks up well against keeping-up-with-the-joneses mp3 players that rich people update quite often (but those also do video), not so well against the 4gb "have all the stuff i listen to on a regular basis with me" players.

    It comes down to how much you would normally spend on music. If you average more than 1 album a month, the premuim account could be value for money.

    Hell, simply for the convenience of having my music collection in one unified place and not having several copies of my songs accross various computers and mp3 players - it's pretty tempting.

    Although i can forsee problems with a "familly" account where there are multiple users in a house all trying to log in on the same account (the fights over the remote control all over again :S)

    In closing: I HATE ITUNES

  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    why use the iphone

    Listening to music on the iphone while the wifi is on it pointless, You can get at top 2.5hours on it, if you listen to music without the wifi you may get 6hours(max). my $79 Zen Mosaic can play for 22 hours.

  5. lukewarmdog
    Badgers

    Unavailable

    If I go to the link about why Spotify isn't available in the US it says

    "We understand that you are currently in unknown country"

    Yes.. yes I am, ushering in your new galactic warlords, they asked me to say there had better be a damn warm welcome for them or there is going to be trouble.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    No thanks

    I do like Spotify a lot and use the free version to listen to albums I'm thinking of buying, but there's no way I'm paying £10 a month just to rent music that I'll never own. what happens if it goes bust? or a couple of bands decide to remove their songs?

    iTunes is often viewed as bad and evil but it can queue up all the songs I haven't heard in a month by my favourite bands - something the alarmingly basic Spotify app can't. I'd happily pay £10 or even £15 a month for all-you-can-download, but not for all-you-can-stream.

  7. jeffrey 1

    The deal breaker

    The deal breaker will be whether it is allowed to work over 3g/edge (even if it is at a compromised bit rate, seriously I'd have no problem with 64kbps if it worked in areas of poor reception).

    If I can stream it over o2 rather than wifi then I would be very tempted.

  8. Toastan Buttar

    @Glen 1

    "b) i cant listen to songs that i already have as an mp3"

    Why don't you use another app to listen to offline MP3s ?

  9. Dan Herd

    O2's network...

    ...is already flaky enough as it is. If this takes off in the way the people at Spotify hope it does, won't the network fall down completely?

  10. Kerberos
    Jobs Horns

    That sucks :(

    They've had the Android version in development for months - longer than the iPhone version. In fact they have taken so damn long someone else even made a version - which Spotify then promptly got pulled off the store.

    I smell a rat.

  11. Craig 12

    Floodgates open!

    Napster app pls!

  12. Robert Brown
    Alert

    Time to wipe my iPod

    Excellent, at last.

    I already subscribe so I'm looking forward to deleting all the MP3s off my iPod touch and updating the songs via WiFi.

    @Glen 1 (b). Yes hopefully,although 2 of my favourite albums have recently been deleted from Spotify (or made not available to UK, either way its the same effect).

  13. Michael C

    Battery life

    @anonymous coward:

    You are miinformed about the iPhoine battery life...

    My 2G iPhone runs for nearly 12 hours playing music from MP3, with bluetooth enabled, connected to a wifi network, and without disabling the cell signal. My 3GS plays longer, closer to 20 hours under the same conditions.

    Steaming over pandora, I can eek out not less than 8 hours over wifi, about 7 hours over 2G, and about 5 hours off 3G using my 3Gs.

    Your 6 hours MAX? I don't know where you got that from... Not only does apple claim up to 30 hour playback (10 hour video, and 9 hours wifi browsing, 12 hours talk time), but MANY tech sites, including this one, have done independent tests and confirmed apple's numbers are not tweaks or exagerations, and the average user in typical conditions (aka not airplane mode or some shit), can actually come real close to Apples battery estimates, not just on the iPhone models, but on their laptops as well.

    My times above were tests I've done. Normally, either at work of at home, if I'm listening to music it's either in a dock or connected to a charging cable. It's always docked in my car when I'm driving. I've not gotten the battery below 50% charge in a long time on either phone unless I've spent a significant amount of time in a new addictive game (which will kill the battery in 3-5 hours depending on the game).

  14. Steve Pettifer
    Boffin

    Not enough to make me pay

    I love the free Spotify service but I'm not going to stump up a Pavaroti a month for the premium service to have it on the iPhone. I only really wanted it so I could stream music to a powered speaker system wherever I was in the house (such as the garden) without needing to bring the laptop out with me.

    But all is not lost - use Spotify on your PC and then download Airfoil onto your PC and Airfoil Speakers onto the iPhone. Airfoil will 'hijack' an app (i.e. Spotify) and then transmit any sound from it across your wireless network and the iPhone will receive it. Plug the phone into your speaker system and presto - Spotify anywhere in the home!

    Obviously, thats no use if you wanted Spotify on the move, but I'm really not so bothered about that.

  15. colwal
    Thumb Up

    Good news and another media app on the way

    Fantastic news and really happy for them and makes me want to buy an iPhone now lol

    Just heard about another amazing iPhone app being developed as well for online TV with a company called TVCatchup, where you will be able to watch all freeview UK TV on the app.

    With Spotify TVCatchup offering media app's it's going to make the iPhone even more attractive to purchase.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    ripping off the musos

    Could there be something to the following theory ?

    "the copyright owner / controller supplies Spotify (and others) with a license to make their catalogue available in exchange for shares, perhaps bought for a minimal sum. Shareholding is not a record sale, therefore no accounting is necessary to artists... Meanwhile, Spotify shares rise in price."

    - which I've just ripped off an artist ( who is currently discussing unlicensed music tracks with,err, Spotify ).

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