This post originally appeared on Spotiguide.

So you love listening to Spotify on your desktop, and you can put up with the adverts and lower streaming quality, and don’t need the offline mode, so haven’t upgraded to Premium? Fair enough. But by not upgrading to Premium you’re missing out on Spotify’s killer feature – Spotify Mobile. Putting Spotify in your pocket, Spotify Mobile is the essential reason to go Premium. Here are ten reasons why you need Spotify Mobile:

1. It’s free… As long as you have Spotify Premium. Get the app here.
2. It offers access to the entire Spotify catalogue, instantly, via your mobile phone. What’s not to like about that?
3. It’s available on iPhone, Android and Symbian (including Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung) handsets. Get a full list of compatible handsets here.
4. The offline mode allows you to store 3,333 tracks on your mobile and listen to them at any time, even when you have no internet connection. That’s a huge catalogue of downloaded tracks stored on your phone.
5. The Spotify app is simple and easy to use. Features vary slightly by handset, but you can enjoy almost all of the features of the desktop version, including instant playback.
6. Sound quality, at 160kbps Ogg Vorbis (roughly equal to 192kbps mp3 and the same as Spotify Free on desktop), is very good. It’s not as high as the 320kbps Premium users enjoy on desktop, but it compares excellently against mp3s played on mobiles, and for example Spotify Mobile on the iPhone offers a better sound experience than the device’s iPod function.
7. Spotify Mobile streams over wi-fi or 2.5/3G brilliantly. Download of offline content is obviously much faster over wi-fi, but Spotify works great for those relying on 3G too.
8. Syncing between the Spotify desktop client and mobile app is instant, and very impressive. Basically, add or amend a playlist on your desktop, and it will update on your mobile – and vice versa.
9. Cover art – a longstanding annoyance for iTunes and iPod users – is never a problem on Spotify Mobile, with large, high quality cover images attached to every track in the catalogue.
10. The ability to force offline mode means you can listen to your offline content without worrying about data charges, for example when travelling abroad. You can listen to your offline content for 30 days without going back online.

In putting instant access to a huge music catalogue into your pocket, Spotify Mobile is changing the future of music consumption. There are still improvements to be made, for example the Spotify apps do not yet scrobble to Last.fm, but these are minor quibbles considering the benefits the service provides. Overall, if you like music, have a compatible mobile, and live in an area where Spotify is available, Spotify Mobile is completely essential.

Music, Technology Spotify

This post originally appeared on Spotiguide.

A lot of key music industry figures have still yet to get their head around the digital revolution, and one of of those figures seems to be Warner Music Group chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. “Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed,” said Bronfman this week. The announcement seemed to suggest that Warner is pulling its music from streaming services such as Spotify, Last.fm and We7.

Bronfman then appeared to strike a specific blow against Spotify, stating, “The ‘get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price’ strategy is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future.”

However, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was quick to refute suggestions that this might affect Spotify. “To be clear; WMG are not pulling out of Spotify. Media is taken things out of context. So don’t worry – be happy ,” Ek Tweeted.

Make no mistake, Warner’s huge roster of talent means that no serious music streaming service can thrive without co-operation from the label. But, by the same measure, no record label can thrive without properly embracing streaming services.

What Bronfman apparently fails to understand is that the music industry has already changed, forever. Streaming and cloud-based music is the future, and labels need to learn how to make music from streaming, either directly, or by using it as a promotional tool to encourage physical sales, including merchandise and tickets.

For the time being, Warner content is still available on Spotify (with the exception of previously-removed artists such as Oasis, and missing albums such as The Betrayed by Lostprophets), and also on Last.fm. Instead of threatening to pull its music, Warner Music should concentrate on making more of its catalogue available.

And if labels aren’t prepared to embrace streaming services, then they should go back to selling MiniDiscs and cassettes and see how far that gets them.

Music, Technology Spotify

This post originally appeared on Spotiguide.

Despite the impressive size of Spotify’s music catalogue there are, inevitably, some annoying omissions. Famously, there is no Beatles or AC/DC due to those artists’ reluctance to join the digital revolution. The likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are similarly absent without leave, and we’re fed only scraps of Bob Dylan and Oasis. We’ve got used to this, and we’ve learned to accept it. But the lack of availability of an increasing number of new and recent releases is more worrying, and Spotify’s official blog and support forum have been filled with queries and complaints.

The number one Spotify-related question we’ve been asked over the past few weeks has been, “When will Vampire Weekend’s new album be available?” Contra was released on 11 January, but has yet to appear on Spotify. The answer, happily for fans of preppy afro-pop, is that it is scheduled to be available for streaming from next week. It seems that the record label, XL Recordings, specifically delayed the album’s Spotify release. The obvious thinking would be that this was an effort to boost sales over the initial few weeks of release. However, XL made the album available to stream in full via the band’s official website. So it is possible to listen to the full album without buying it – just not on Spotify.

It’s likely that some Spotify users will have been unable to wait for the album’s delayed streaming release and will have instead bought the download or CD, but then fans of the band were likely to do that anyway. However, it’s also likely that other Spotify users won’t have sampled the album on Spotify, and therefore won’t have gone on to buy it. Making an album available for streaming via a band’s website is all well and good, but only existing fans visit bands’ websites. XL’s tactic may have prevented Spotify users from trying and buying Contra.

Another high-profile release that has caused consternation among Spotify users is The Betrayed by Lostprophets. The release was actually promoted in a post on the official Spotify blog on 18 January, and the album was available to listen to. For a couple of days. Then, for some reason, The Betrayed was removed from the UK catalogue. It seems that the album is released by Sony in most Spotify territories, but by Warner Music in the UK. And Warner has specifically asked Spotify to remove it from the catalogue. Again, this is preventing potential purchasers from sampling the album.

In general, Spotify is actually pretty good for recent releases. Of the ten albums currently in the iTunes top ten, only Lostprophets and Hope For Haiti are unavailable on Spotify, and it’s understandable that the charity album would not be available to stream. (Vampire Weekend are no longer in the top ten.) A comparison of the top ten tracks, however, is less impressive, with bestselling iTunes tracks from the Glee Cast, Lyaz, Sidney Samson and Example all unavailable on Spotify. On the positive side, Spotify Premium users do occasionally get access to albums ahead of their official release date, such as, this week, Ke$ha’s Animal.

The real problem for Spotify is that a lack of availability of even one key release can make the difference between a music fan signing up for the premium service or sticking to downloads and CDs. If a hotly-anticipated album doesn’t become available, there’s every chance they’ll take their £9.99 that they might have spent on a Spotify Premium subscription and use it to buy the individual album. Great news for the record company (in the short term, anyway) but bad news for a service so keen to increase its subscription base in the UK.

Another problem regarding new releases on Spotify is a lack of notification when new music is added to the catalogue. Until a couple of months ago, Spotify regularly issued Google spreadsheets containing information about all new additions. Unfortunately, due to a change in the way music is added to the service, this has been discontinued. The information contained in the spreadsheets was also used by recommendation services such as Spotify.fm and Last.fm + Spotify, plus a whole host of other websites and blogs. The result is that it’s very difficult to find out what’s new on Spotify.

Until a solution can be found, Pansentient League is hosting a New On Spotify tool, that produces a list of new additions to the Spotify catalogue from the previous week. The tool is limited by Spotify’s API, and it won’t solve the problem for recommendation services, but it’s a useful fix.

Ultimately, Spotify and the labels need to think carefully about how new releases are made available on the service. Users want new releases available on the day of release, suitably presented and easy to find – just like they are on iTunes. Until that happens, Spotify will remain flawed, and its usefulness to the labels will remain limited.

Music, Technology Spotify