Android apps have slowly been adopting bottom bars in their UI since the option was added to Google’s Material Design spec last year. Apps like Google+ and Google Photos have been prime examples of the design for a while, but recently Spotify has added the same UI to its Android application.
T-Mobile today announced new services being added to its Binge On program, which allows its wireless subscribers to stream video content from certain apps without dipping into their mobile data caps.
Spotify has announced that it is moving its music streaming backend to the Google Cloud Platform. The gigantic task will take place over the coming weeks and months and hopefully should not result in any service disruptions for users. For Google, the move is a clear win for their burgeoning cloud business.
Spotify recently added new Video and Audio Shows, and this week the update has been rolling out to Android users. It’s an interesting move for a streaming service that has long been dedicated to being the best at music (and it’s still the leader in this space by far), but I think this update will come as a delightful value-add for those that have shifted to using Spotify as their main avenue of media consumption…
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According to a report this morning from The Wall Street Journal, Spotify is getting ready to finally launch its video content offerings. The rollout is set to start with the Android app getting video by the end of this week, but the iOS app is following suit by the end of next…
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At long last, The Beatles music is going to be available to stream on many of the most popular music streaming services from tomorrow, December 24th. Whether you prefer to use Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music, Rhapsody or one of many others, you’ll be able to sing along to the Fab Four’s most popular tunes anywhere you like, without having to pay to download individual songs or albums …
T-Mobile is extending its popular Music Freedom service, which allows unlimited use of Google Play Music and other streaming music services without eating into your data allowance, to MetroPCS prepaid customers – albeit under a slightly different name. T-Mobile said that its Music Unlimited service would be available on a range of plans, starting from just $40/month.
Music Unlimited includes more than 30 music streaming services, including Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, iHeart Radio, and Google Play Music. Music Unlimited is available to new and existing MetroPCS customers on Metro’s new $40, $50, and $60 unlimited plans.
The company is also offering a Binge On equivalent, known as Data Maximizer. This compresses streaming video streams down to DVD quality to allow customers to stream three times as much video content for the same data usage …
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Spotify has updated its Android app to include local live concert discovery. The new feature, named Concerts, arrived on the popular streaming app this morning and uses similar technology to the Discover Weekly feature. It uses its knowledge of your favorite artists and listening habits to recommend live acts worth seeing nearby.
Our new Concerts feature lets you know when your favorite artists announce new concerts near you so you’ll never miss another show. And for artists, it’s easier than ever to get the word out to fans about new concerts. On your phone, simply open the Browse tab on Spotify and select Concerts to see a personalized list of what’s playing nearby.
If you’re travelling you can hit ‘change location’ and find concerts for the artists you enjoy all over the world. The Concerts feature uses Songkick’s services to gather information, and uses knowledge of your music listening patterns to determine the bands and singers you like, and those you might like to discover.
As with any location-based service, how great this is depends heavily on where you live. Sadly if, like me, you live in a remote city miles from anywhere, you’re likely just to be reminded that there are no concerts near you. Ever.
You can download the update app from the Play Store now.
Apple Music is finally available to download for Android, so I wanted to give you a quick setup tour and first impressions of Apple’s second app for Google’s mobile platform. It’s free to download and offers almost all of the same features and services found in the iOS and OS X apps, including the option to sign up for a free three-month trial…
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We first reported last month that Google was bringing Spotify support to the Chromecast, and those who already have the second-generation Chromecast in their possession (like myself) have probably been toying with the feature for a while now. Google did mention at its event last month, however, that support for the streaming service would be coming to the first-generation Chromecast at some point within a few weeks. It looks like that update is now rolling out…
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During the announcement of Google’s Chromecast Audio yesterday, the company made sure to mention that music subscription leader Spotify will soon be one of the many music streaming services supported by the platform. With many Apple Music subscriptions renewing (or not renewing) and Google unveiling a $35 dongle that retrofits our existing home speakers with Wi-Fi, some are rightfully wondering: What about Apple Music?
According to statements from one Googler (via TrustedReviews), Google has no bar on any platform joining in on supporting Chromecast, and the Mountain View company has already directly asked Apple to play along…
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As we exclusively reported earlier this month, Spotify is teaming up with Google to — finally — introduce support for the Chromecast. Now, as the event is nearing kickoff, some users are already noticing their Chromecast devices appearing in the Spotify Connect list, although the feature doesn’t seem to be working quit yet.
As you can see above, it looks like Spotify is going to include Google Cast devices in the same list as other Spotify Connect devices (via Reddit). However, as of right now at least, try to cast your stream to a Chromecast simple results in the following error message: “Spotify is not support on this device right now.”
Google is sure to make mention of Spotify’s new support for its platform at its event scheduled to kick off at 9 AM PT. If you want to keep in the loop on this as well as new Chromecast hardware, new Nexus devices, and more, be sure to head over and watch the livestream when it becomes available.
While Chromecast has long supported Google Play Music, Netflix, Pandora, and other subscription services, Spotify — one of the most popular music streaming services — has long been left off the list. According to leaked internal documents that 9to5Google has seen, Google is preparing a slew of Chromecast announcements for later this month, one of which being Spotify support for Chromecast…
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Spotify Running, which originally launched on iOS a whole 4 months ago, has finally made it to Android. From today, Android users will be able to fire up the Spotify app, open the Running feature, and have the music streaming service find music that matches tempo with the pace of their jog…
It’s yet another example of Android support getting put on the back burner, but at least it’s here, right?
As per the official Spotify blog:
Since the launch of Spotify Running, millions of you have laced up and hit the road together with the best musical motivation out there.
Today we’re thrilled to be bringing the same great experience to our Android users.
With Spotify Running, we’ve combined the best music on the planet with recommendations based on your listening history, multiple-genre playlists as well as original running compositions.
Simply select your tempo and start running. We’ll match the perfect music in time to your step to help you go the extra mile.
Spotify Running has been available in the beta version of the Spotify app on Android for a few months now — it’s somewhat odd that it took that long for the feature to be graduated to the full version of the app. Nonetheless, users of the main Spotify app should start seeing the feature roll out today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fZBqV_yMq4
To celebrate the launch of its mid-range Desire 626, HTC has just announced that it is collaborating with Spotify to let you create custom playlists using just a picture of your face. HTC Mood Player is a fun concept and one which I’m sure will give you at least a few minutes of fun while you interact with what is essentially just an advertisement for the Desire 626. Of course, we couldn’t let this announcement go by without taking the site for a spin…
Spotify told us last month that support for Android Wear was on the way, and now it looks like it’s finally here. With the latest version of the Spotify app, rolling out on the Play Store right now, you’ll be able to access new menus for controlling your music on your Android Wear device…
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After first announcing a handful of new features and redesigned apps last month for iOS users, today most of those features are arriving for the Spotify beta for Android ahead of a public release. The highlight changes include Spotify’s new Running feature that automatically detects an ideal tempo to creates playlist based on your running pace, more content, and a redesigned Now start page.
The update, version 3.1, also brings audio and video shows that were first introduced to web and iOS users last month in addition to other new content and UI tweaks throughout the app. The new content includes videos and podcasts from ABC, BBC, Comedy Central, Condé Nast Entertainment, ESPN, Fusion, Maker Studios, NBC, TED, Vice News, and more.
The new features are currently only available to users in the US, UK, Sweden and Germany, and will likely roll out to all users beyond Spotify’s beta channel in the near future.
(via AndroidPolice)
It may seem like a first world problem (it is), but one of the biggest reasons why I’ve stayed using Spotify for so long is the time and effort it can take to move all my playlists and saved songs across music services. Where a content management service like WordPress allows you to export all your blog posts and take them elsewhere, since you don’t own the songs you listen to in Spotify, Google Play Music All Access, or the countless other music streaming services, they understandably don’t provide any way to export that music. As a result I justified not giving any other service a fair shake by saying I’d only switch if the alternative were at least 10x better.
I set out today to give Play Music All Access that fair shake and thought I’d share how I transferred my music over without much hassle.
The answer to all my problems (and maybe yours, too) was in the form of PyPortify, a port of a similar (free) app called Portify that was released back in 2013 but stopped working for most people at some point before the beginning of 2015. PyPortify is pretty simple to install and use, but for this post I’m just going to share how to do it on Mac OS X – it’s not too much different on Linux, and instructions for Windows, Linux, and Mac are available on the GitHub source page.
Update: I did not have Xcode installed when I completed this install, but if you do, you may need to run it and install updated components before you’ll be able to go through this tutorial.
First you’ll need to install Homebrew. It’s a popular command-line application that makes it easy to download and install applications and packages for your Mac – like if you, say for example, need the Python programming language to run an app that was written in it (like PyPortify). Open the Terminal application, paste in this command, and hit <Return>:
ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)”
Once that’s finished installing and the blinking cursor returns, paste and hit <Return> on the following:
brew install python
Finally, when you’re done with both of those, paste and <Enter> this command:
pip install pyportify
This should just take a minute or two to download and install, and once it’s finished paste and <Enter> this:
pyportify
In your terminal you should get something back like this:
Now open a browser to http://localhost:3132
Don’t close your terminal window. Paste that URL as it is in your terminal – including the http and the numbers at the end – in your browser and hit <Return>. You’ll get a site which looks like this:
Click “Get started” and you’ll be asked to log into your Google account, so it can have access to your Play Music account. What you’ll want to do here is go to the My Account dashboard for your Google account and create an app password (click here for that). Once you’re done transferring all your music to All Access you can revoke this password so PyPortify doesn’t have access any longer. Next you’ll have to log into your Spotify account. If you sign into it with your Facebook account, those credentials will work just fine, and Facebook has app passwords as well that you can generate and use for PyPortify.
Finally once all of that is done, you’ll see a page like this:
Here you get to choose all the Spotify playlists you want to transfer to Google Play Music, just click the check box to the right of each playlist you want to transfer. Once you start the transfer, you’ll see a page that says it’s transferring but the “Found,” “Not Found,” and “Filtered Karaoke” numbers might not be moving up from zero. But go back to your open terminal and…
It’s working! Navigate to Google Play Music, open the left-hand drawer, scroll down to the playlists section, and you should see the playlists you chose to transfer starting to show up.
Of course not all music that’s available on Spotify may be available on Google Play Music All Access, but I’ve found that the overlap is pretty close. Also, using PyPortify is technically against the terms of service of both services, so do it at your own risk, but we haven’t heard of anything bad happening as a result of using this service. Enjoy!
I don’t own a Sonos speaker – I used to, and an update today to the Sonos Controller really makes me wish I still did: Spotify users now get access to a ton a great discovery features that were previously missing.
Spotify users, rejoice. Starting with a gradual rollout next month, the popular music streaming app will be available on Android Wear watches.
According to the company’s blog post, you’ll be able to navigate through and select something to play from all the music you’ve saved to Your Music as well as find new stuff in Browse. We don’t have much information on the Wear app yet as it hasn’t been released and the image above is the only one Spotify provided, but we’ll post more as soon as we get it.
As a big Spotify fan and power user I’m curious to see what the Browse section will look like on such a small screen, as Browse on smartphones contains sections for mood-based playlists, new releases, top charts, and more. Are you excited to get Spotify on your Wear watch?
Shazam for Android received a major update on Wednesday with a redesigned home screen and music player for more conveniently keeping up to date with the latest artists you have identified, finding out what songs friends are listening to and accessing the latest Shazam charts. A brand new Shazam.com was also launched with a Hall of Fame for artists and other new features.
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Spotify Premium gives you no ads, offline listening, on-demand listening even on mobile and better sound quality, and normally costs $9.99. So to get three months for just $0.99 sounds like a deal that’s too good to be true.
Unfortunately, it pretty much is. While the deal is there for new users, anyone who has ever subscribed to Premium or Unlimited isn’t eligible, and nor is anyone who has ever taken a one-month free trial of Premium. So, er, just about anyone who likes Spotify, then.
Still, if you do have friends who’ve never taken up the trial, this would be the perfect time for them to try it out. They will have to provide card details and remember to cancel before the three months is up, otherwise they will start paying the usual $9.99 a month.
For any budding DJs, the music mixing app djay came to Android a month or so ago, complete with Spotify integration.
Spotify also recently announced a family deal of $4.99 a month for each additional Premium user. The Spotify Music Android app is a free download from Google play.
Via 9to5Toys
Algoriddim, the team behind the popular music mixing app djay, first shipped the commercial version of its flagship app in 2007 on the Mac followed by the iPad version in 2010 and the iPhone version in 2011. Adding to the history of djay, today Algoriddim is launching djay for Android through the Google Play Store and Amazon App Store making the app its first on Google’s platform.
While djay is rooted in digital music mixing on the Mac then iOS, the new Android version is just as desktop class with high quality music playback and real time analyzing and mixing. Better yet, djay for Android packs in deep Spotify integration from day one–the iOS version first added up Spotify integration earlier this year–which means you have access to over 20 million songs for mixing together and playback.
Anyone who has ever shared a Spotify Premium account with a partner or – worse – their kids will know the problems: arguments over who gets to use it when, and your playlists and recommendations polluted by the likes of Jason Mraz or the soundtrack from The Lego Movie.
Spotify Family will soon allow you to purchase additional Premium subscriptions for up to four family members for half-price. The first family member will continue to pay $10/month, but additional family members pay just $5/month.
Your account. Your music. With Spotify Family, everyone gets their very own account. Enjoy separate playlists and recommendations and play your music whenever you like.
Premium for everyone. Everyone on the plan gets the full Spotify Premium experience. Listen offline. Play any song, anytime, on any device. No restrictions. No ads.
The more the merrier. Having a family can be expensive. But music doesn’t have to be. With Spotify Family, you can add up to four family members to your account, and each additional user gets 50% off Spotify Premium.
No tantrums. No more fighting over what to listen to, and no more interruptions when someone else logs in and starts playing.
Spotify said a family membership has been one of its most requested features, and that the package will roll-out globally in the coming weeks.
Spotify apps are available for both Android and Windows, as well OS X and iOS. Spotify also made it to the Amazon Fire TV box last month.