Spotify

Spotify updated with new sorting and filtering options, prompts for playlist duplicates

Monday, Swedish music startup Spotify has updated its app with the ability to search your downloaded music while offline. Today, Spotify has received another update which adds an additional few long-overdue capabilities.

Now live in the App Store, the new Spotify version 1.4 offers the ability to view your Play Queue on the iPhone, apply actions to your songs and playlists by taping the ellipsis icon, avoid adding duplicates to your playlists and more.

Jump past the fold for the full reveal...

Spotify now makes it easy to take all Your Music for offline listening

Spotify, the top subscription music service, today gave its iOS streaming app a minor update improving the way you can manage and enjoy your music when without an Internet connection. According to the Swedish startup, you can now go to the Songs tab to tell the app to synchronize all the tracks inside the Your Music section for offline listening. Previously, you had to mark songs for offline listening by starring them or waste time creating and managing playlists.

Spotify for the iPhone and iPad is free in the App Store...

DefaultSpot makes Spotify the default music player on iPhone

Spotify is one of the most popular cross-platform streaming music services, with over 40 million active users worldwide. While I am out of luck using the service as a Canadian, our neighbors to the south and elsewhere can benefit from a jailbreak tweak called DefaultSpot. The simple iOS extension sets Spotify as the default music player on iPhone, and also integrates with the Control Center playback controls.

You can now create mixes from Spotify tracks in Algoriddim’s djay for iPhone and iPad

Germany-based Algoriddim - which develops the popular djay software for the iPhone [$1.99], iPad [$9.99] and Mac [$19.99] - today announced a major partnership with Swedish startup Spotify, which operates the world's leading streaming-music service.

Spotify Premium subscribers and DJ wannabes can now mix any of the more than twenty million Spotify tracks, right inside djay for the iPhone and iPad. This seamless integration extends to such advanced features as Automix Radio, Spotify Match, desktop-class audio effects and pro-grade DJ hardware integration, to name a few.

The newly introduced capabilities are available via a major update to djay for the iPhone and iPad. Based on my brief hands-on time with djay for iPad, I can safely say that Spotify integration has just become a major selling point for these kinds of apps, here's why...

Spotify announces it now has 10 million paying subscribers, 40 million active users

Spotify has announced that it's surpassed two new major milestones in recent weeks. The streaming service says that it now has more than 10 million paying subscribers and over 40 million active users, in 56 markets around the globe.

For context, Pandora said last month that its active user count for March was 75.3 million. It didn't say how many of those were paid accounts, but looking at its numbers from last year (2.5 million) Spotify may be close to passing it...

Sprint news: 6 free months of Spotify Premium, LTE covering 225M people, Harman Kardon partnership

Sprint held a 'Hear It For Yourself' media event earlier today that saw the announcement of a Harmon Kardon version of the HTC One M8 handset.

As part of the presentation for select members of the press, executives with the nation's third-largest wireless carrier have said that all new and existing postpaid customers on Sprint's 'Framily' plan will get six free months of Spotify Premium, iPhone owners included.

Android and Windows 8/8.1 smartphone owners are eligible for this offer, too.

Premium Spotify subscriptions start at ten bucks per month, which buys you higher-quality unlimited streaming with no advertising...

Opinion: the clock is ticking on Apple’s rumored on-demand streaming music service

If you need another proof that download sales are declining steadily as music lovers increasingly rent their music rather than buy it, here's one.

Spotify's head of label relations in Europe, Kevin Brown, revealed last week to an industry outlet that his company is earning more cash across Continental Europe from sales of music subscriptions than iTunes does by selling individual song and album downloads.

As a reference, iTunes back in the summer of 2004 enjoyed a commanding 62 percent share of European music sales.

But having added more than a million active users in the United Kingdom alone in the last four months, Spotify seems poised to beat iTunes. Small wonder Brown is adamant that it's only "a matter of time" before the Swedish startup overtakes Apple's digital music store in Europe in terms of revenue.

Why isn't Apple doing something about it? Doesn't the firm see the signs on the wall already? Didn't Tim Cook and Co. get the memo that music downloads are dying a slow death? Read on...

Spotify picks up new Repeat One and Your Music features, bug fixes

Following up on a recent Spotify revamp that has painted it black with an all-new look, the Swedish music streaming service has issued another update to its iOS app, bringing out a better way to organize your music, a Repeat One functionality and several bug fixes for a few nasty issues that were introduced in the last release.

Spotify version 1.1 is available free in the App Store. Jump past the fold for the full changelog and additional notes...

Spotify updated with major redesign and other improvements

Good news for Spotify users this morning: the streaming music service has delivered a much needed redesign to its web, iPhone and desktop clients. The new look brings the apps more in line with competitors like Rdio, and establishes a single identity across all platforms.

The redesign comes to the iPhone (it doesn't look like it's on the iPad yet) by way of the version 1.0 update. It's much darker than before, and features trendy effects like blur and rounded iconography. Spotify has also made a handful of performance and stability improvements....

Apple considering iTunes for Android, on-demand streaming service

Apple is contemplating launching an iTunes app for Android devices to bolster its digital music sales, according to a new Billboard report. The company is also said to be in exploratory talks with senior label executives about rolling out an on-demand streaming service that would rival Spotify and Beats Music. These two moves are part of a broader strategy that would help the Cupertino-based company combat double-digit drops in iTunes downloads in the United States… 

iTunes Radio now the third most popular streaming music service in US

A new report from Edison Research says that iTunes Radio has become the third most popular streaming music service in the US. The marketing research firm says that Apple's Radio service, which is less than 6 months old, just surpassed Spotify to take the #3 spot.

According to the data iTunes Radio now sits behind Pandora, who has 31% of the US streaming music market, and iHeartRadio, which has 9%. Then it comes in at 8%, Spotify at 6% and both Google Play All Access and Rhapsody come in at 3% and 2% respectively...

Spotify snaps up music intelligence provider The Echo Nest

The popular Swedish music-streaming startup, Spotify, has just purchased The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company in the business of synthesizing billions of data points and transforming them "into musical understanding to power smarter music applications for our customers".

And just who those customers might be? Well, the startup powers a myriad of music services, among them Spotify rivals like Rdio, iHeartRadio, Nokia MixRadio, Twitter Music and others so this is clearly a well played move on Spotify's part.

While The Echo Nest will meet all contractual obligations to all customers, Spotify's Graham James made it clear his company will scrutinize these relationships and "determine the next business steps"...