Spotify is an extremely popular music streaming service in Europe. It lets users stream any of their millions of songs on demand, through desktop and mobile apps. The same hold ups with record companies that delayed Google’s Music Beta have also been keeping Spotify out of the States, but it looks like its finally on coming across the pond.
Streaming music is obviously a pretty big deal, with giants like Amazon, Google, and even Best Buy trying to get in on the game. Spotify however is more akin to Pandora, offering music purely for streaming (rather than storing your own a la Music Beta by Google). The difference between Pandora and Spotify is that the latter lets you choose what song to listen to.
So what does this all have to do with our beloved Android? Well no music streaming service is complete without an Android app of course, and Spotify is no exception. Soon you’ll be able to listen to whatever song you want (sponsored by visual and audio ads) on your Android phone or tablet.
Streaming is really cool, but with capped data spreading, (PSA: Verizon’s moving over to capped data starting tomorrow) will services like Spotify be able to take off? I for one have seen my data usage creep higher each month recently, and Android users are among the heaviest data users. What do those of you with capped data plans think? Will you be able to spare the data usage for the awesomeness of Spotify? If so, head to their site here and request an invite.
You can sync your play list to the phone and make them available in offline mode.. you can sync trough wifi and then it wont disturb your data plans .. just have to buy a big memory card 😛 …
the service is awesome and i havent downloaded a song since i started using spotify (about 1.5 year)..
Spotify on Android is my most-used app: it really is a musical game-changer. As vojz says, the offline mode lets you (wirelessly) sync up playlists and albums while on wifi and listen to them when you’re out and about, with no impact on your data plans.
Note that the app on Android has no advertising, but you need to be a premium subscriber to stream or sync from the 15 million+ catalog. You can use the Android app on the free service, but only to listen to local songs – either bought from Spotify’s store or elsewhere.
I’ve been writing a blog about Spotify for a couple of years now at: http://pansentient.com/