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Sep 11, 2024 · With an easy-to-use app, excellent recommendations, best-in-class social features and a library of audiobooks, podcasts and music tracks, Spotify is still the king of music streaming – at...
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- What is Spotify?
- Spotify: pricing and subscription
- Spotify: music catalogue
- Spotify: platforms
- Spotify: web player
- Spotify: mobile app
- Spotify: podcasts
- Spotify: Spotify Connect
Our favorite music streaming service is Spotify. First launched in 2008, it has a library of more than 70 million tracks and 2.2 million podcasts. It’s no surprise, then, that it also has 354 million users globally.
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What is Spotify?
Pricing and subscription
Music catalogue
Platforms
Spotify is a music streaming platform. This means you can use it to find tracks, albums and podcasts and, through a data or Wi-Fi connection, play them. You can also create playlists of tracks, save your favorite songs into a library, and even download them to your device so you can listen when you’re offline.
Offering plenty of search features, it also provides a good way to discover new music. However, its appeal for many is in its recommendations. This makes it ideal for anyone who wants to get on with working, partying or chilling out, without having to consider the track you should play next. Spotify decides for you – and often, its choices are spot on.
Spotify is also known for its smart ideas, adding new services, rolling out redesigns and creating big, viral sharing campaigns – such as Spotify Wrapped. The company has also been working on Spotify Lite – a simpler version of the Spotify app that uses less storage, data and battery to optimize performance, making it ideal for older devices and operating systems.
What we’re saying is Spotify is so much more than a music library. It has plenty to offer and new features are being added all the time.
You can pay for a Spotify subscription or use Spotify for free. You’ll always get a better experience from a pay-for service, but Spotify’s free offering is decent.
While it’s called ‘free’, the reality is it isn’t; it’s ad-supported. Companies pay Spotify to give you the luxury of listening for free so you’ll listen to their ads. But Spotify still wants you to be a paying subscriber, which is the reason the free experience isn’t top-notch.
A free subscription allows you to play any track, album or playlist at any time and in any order, which is good. But every few songs, you’ll hear an ad, which you can’t skip.
Using the Spotify app on mobile with a free account, you can pick 15 playlists featuring 750 tracks in total. You can’t freely skip the tracks in these playlists and there will be ads to contend with here, too.
If you’re only a casual listener, the free version might work for you. But for most people, a Spotify subscription is more than worth it. This costs $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$11.99 a month and gets you unlimited access to Spotify on your laptop, phone and tablet.
More recently, Spotify has added Premium Duo. This is designed for couples or two friends. It’s $12.99 / £13.99 / AU$15.99 a month for two accounts. You get all the perks of premium Spotify as well as Duo Mix, a playlist for two that’s regularly updated with music you’ll both enjoy.
Spotify regularly posts updates about just how many millions of tracks it has in its library. At the time of writing, that number is 70 million.
Over the years, several artists have withdrawn their music from Spotify, including The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z and Thom Yorke. Although, the last time we checked, most of the artists who removed their music in the early days can now be found on Spotify.
The reasons for withdrawing their music were varied, but Spotify has been criticized in the past for not compensating artists as fully as it could.
An argument in favor of Spotify is that it moves people away from piracy and allows them to discover new music and artists. However, some people still choose to avoid Spotify and either buy music outright or use services such as Tidal and Bandcamp, which give artists more autonomy and royalties.
A number of artists have only recently withdrawn their music from the platform due to the The Joe Rogan Experience podcast controversy. At the time of writing, you won't find Neil Young or Joni Mitchell music on the streaming service anymore, with other artists likely to follow suit.
If your favorite album isn't on the streaming service, you can upload music to Spotify so all your files are in one place.
The best way to use Spotify is via an app on your desktop, phone or tablet; it works on a range of devices. iOS devices need to be running iOS 12 or above. For Android, Android OS 4.1 or above. Using a Mac? OS X 10.11 or above. And Windows desktop and laptops need to be running Windows 7 or above.
Spotify also works with some sound systems, TVs, car stereo systems and games consoles. There’s also Spotify support on wearables now, including the Apple Watch. You can check out Spotify Everywhere to see which devices are compatible.
The web player isn’t the best way to use Spotify – it doesn’t feel as slick as the app and some functionality, such as creating playlists, is possible but feels clunky.
However, the web player lets you use the Spotify service on a laptop or desktop without installing anything. That may prove handy if you’re on a work PC and can't install apps.
Spotify’s apps across major platforms (iOS, Android and Windows Phone) are stable, easy to use and updated frequently to make the experience as intuitive as possible.
Thanks to a new update, the app’s home screen displays items you’ve recently played at the top – including albums, playlists and podcasts – so you can dip back in. A new clock icon in the top right-hand corner also provides a comprehensive list of everything you’ve played recently; it’s like looking back over your browser history.
Underneath, there are different playlists, recommendations and album suggestions personalized to you and your listening. Ours features playlists put-together for us, including Discover Weekly and a selection of Daily Mix playlists, as well as a section dedicated to new podcast episodes and new releases – this is a recent update, too – including new tracks and albums based on songs you might like.
In the search tab, you can manually search for items in the top bar, or you can browse by genres and moods using the tiles below – think pop, workout, focus and country.
In a bid to become the only audio app you’ll ever need, Spotify added podcasts to its platform in 2015 – and now there’s a massive selection. With Spotify, you ‘follow’ podcasts rather than ‘subscribe’ to them, with new episodes then appearing on your home screen.
If you already have a podcast app you know and love, you might not need to use Spotify at all – we were the same. But we’ve slowly found ourself using Spotify more and more for podcasts in a bid to streamline the apps we're using, so we wouldn’t be surprised if other users gradually find themselves doing the same.
We all know Spotify is excellent at picking tracks for customized playlists, but it can also apply the same kind of algorithmic magic to your podcast tastes, suggesting ones you might like to listen to – and often it’s bang on the money.
At the time of writing, Spotify is in the middle of a controversy because it exclusively hosts The Joe Rogan Experience – a podcast in which the host has claimed healthy young people don't need the Covid vaccine. Spotify has since responded by saying it will flag podcast content to do with the pandemic from here on out.
Spotify Connect allows you to stream tracks from your Spotify mobile or desktop app to a Wi-Fi-enabled wireless speaker.
Think of it as Spotify’s answer to Apple AirPlay or Google Cast. If you have a Bluetooth speaker that doesn't use Wi-Fi, it should still work since Bluetooth simply transmits all audio from your phone. Visit Spotify Everywhere and scroll down to Smart Speakers to check if yours supports Spotify Connect.
- Spotify
Oct 26, 2023 · Is Spotify the best music streaming service? Spotify excels in music discovery, but other music streaming services have their strengths: Tidal and Qobuz offer better sound quality, Apple Music has top-tier playlist curation, and YouTube Music is a great source for rare or unofficial tracks.
Apr 15, 2024 · Winner: Spotify. Apple Music vs. Spotify: Value. If you don’t want to pay for streaming music and you’re OK with ads, Apple’s insistence on not having a free plan will keep you using Spotify.
- Lee Dunkley
Jun 12, 2024 · Spotify ranks top among the best music streaming services in the world thanks to its huge music and podcast libraries and sophisticated music suggestion tools — and it could soon get...
Jun 20, 2024 · Find the best music streaming service for you. Our expert reviews and survey results reveal the music streaming services available, from Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Apple Music and more.
Jun 3, 2024 · The Bottom Line. Spotify leads the streaming music pack with its deep music well, countless podcasts, early album access, collaborative playlists, and AI-powered curation.
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