In a long-awaited announcement, Spotify expanded its free streaming option for mobile devices on Wednesday.
History of Spotify: how the Swedish streaming company changed the music industry. When Spotify launched on the Apple App Store and continued to grow as it provided an alternative to both legal.
Until now, the music streaming company has provided a free streaming service for smartphones and tablets akin to Pandora(P), Rdio, and Apple's iTunes Radio. But picking and choosing songs to stream for free was exclusively available to PCs running Microsoft(MSFT) Windows or Apple(AAPL) Mac OS X. Mobile users were forced to pay $10 a month for a premium service in order to stream select music to their devices.
Spotify updated its iOS and Google(GOOG) Android apps on Wednesday, allowing smartphone and tablet users to access free music through Spotify's 'Shuffle Play' feature. Shuffle Play allows users to listen to their playlists, their friend's playlists, or a catalog of an artist's music, but Spotify will only play those songs in a random order. To listen to the songs in the order of your choosing, you'll still need to upgrade to premium service.
As an added benefit, Spotify announced that legendary rock band Led Zeppelin's music is now available for streaming.
At an event in downtown Manhattan, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the latest features allow for the best free music experience in smartphone history.
'Mobile users listen to music on shuffle,' Ek said. 'In order for Spotify to really go mobile. we made this new product free.'
Ek says enabling free mobile access will drive more adoption and encourage people to upgrade for the service.
'The more music you play, the more you're likely to pay,' he said.
Spotify is already quite popular: The CEO said users have streamed 4.5 billion hours of music on the service.
As part of the announcement, Ek also said Spotify would launch in 20 new markets -- from Chile to Hungary and Costa Rica. That will make Spotify available in 55 markets.
One of the most prominent music playing platforms that you can access is definitely Spotify. Spotify has really revolutionized the music industry by making music tracks from all genres easily accessible by just visiting its website.
Apart from the versatility seen in the vast music collection that Spotify as under its catalog, another defining feature is its multiplatform use feature. This feature allows you to access Spotify music from different platforms such as the desktop application and mobile application.
For many Spotify users, the ongoing debate has for long been Spotify desktop vs mobile app, which is better of the two. Let us view this debate in depth so as to know which the best platform is.
- See also: Differences between Spotify Web Player and Desktop Client
What Distinguishes the Two Platforms?
To get the better of the two platforms, Spotify desktop app, and mobile app, we first need to know what distinguishes them from one another.
The desktop application is the Spotify platform that is compatible with your desktop and is downloadable from Spotify's site and other download sites. It is compatible with all computers and saves you a lot of hustles that may come with using the website version. It is convenient to use and comes with a host of features that make it a worthy desktop music application.
On the other hand, the mobile application version is there in order to take advantage of increased mobile phone use. The Spotify mobile application allows you to get access to Spotify's vast music catalog from the comfort of your mobile phone. Just like the desktop version, this is a more convenient way of endlessly streaming to your music selection.
To see what really distinguishes the two platforms apart from the names are the features. Let us look at each of their features.
Features of the Two Platforms
This is the point where the debate on Spotify desktop app vs mobile app gets intense. Both of the platforms come with features that make each of them distinct from one another. Some of the features that the desktop platform and the mobile platform have are as seen below.
Mobile App History Spotify Subscription
The Desktop Application
• Create Playlist Folders
The desktop application has the option of creating playlist folders if you have a long playlist that you would love to have organized. You just go to the file option on the desktop app menu and click on create a playlist folder and name it as you wish. You can then save your playlist on these folders for easy access to your music.
• Edit Cover Art
Spotify Download
The desktop application also allows you to have your own desired cover art when listening to music. Spotify normally picks for you the cover art, however, with the desktop application, you can select the cover art that you want to feature as the music plays.
• Drag And Drop Sharing
When you get awesome music that you feel you need to share with your friends, you can easily share it via email or messenger by simply dragging and dropping. Click on the music track and drag it to the sending medium you want and drop it then send. The recipient will receive the music track's link making for an awesome sharing experience.
- See more: 2 Best Ways to Email Spotify Playlists to Friends
• Song History
You can also view your song history from the Spotify desktop application. You can get a song by song list of all the songs that you have played, unlike the mobile version that only allows you to view playlists and albums.
The Mobile Application
• Voice Command
The mobile app has the voice command feature that helps in getting a request accomplished. You just long press the search button and ask Spotify to get you an album, an artist's playlist or whichever song you would like. This is a fast way of initiating a search to get to your beloved music.
• Link With Shazam
Shazam is one of the greatest music applications that allows you to get a music title and composer of an unknown music joint playing. Shazam can be connected to Spotify and allows you to save the playlist under your Shazam tracks.
• Lyrics View
Spotify can also connect to SoundHound and allows you to see the lyrics of the song you are playing on display. You can sing along to the selected song using this feature.
• Private Session
The private session feature allows you to play selected musical joints in private mode without Spotify bringing up suggestions to you. This is great especially for those joints that you only play once in a long time.
Mobile App History Spotify Playlists
Verdict & Extra Tip
The debate, Spotify desktop vs mobile app seems so intense by looking at what each version has to offer. The mobile version is good for convenience and you can play your music at any place anytime so long as you have the Spotify app installed. The desktop version, on the other hand, comes with a host of features that the mobile version lacks such as the song history view. As a conclusion to this tight duel, Spotify desktop client vs mobile app, the desktop version takes the in owing to its diverse and awesome features that the mobile version lacks.
Yet, no matter you're using spotify desktop client or mobile app, if you want to listen to Spotify songs offline anytime anywhere, you need to upgrade to the premium account to download the tracks. Another easy way is to use TunesKit Spotify Music Converter, a powerful Spotify music downloader, to download Spotify songs, albums, playlists to MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc. with lossless quality.
Adam Gorden is an experienced writer of TunesKit who is obsessed about tech, movie and software.