Which, essentially, makes it Pandora that you don't need an internet connection for.
I'll stick with the free service.
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Spotify Launches Download Service and iPod Syncing in Europe
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Which, essentially, makes it Pandora that you don't need an internet connection for.
I'll stick with the free service.
I never understaood why, out of >25 european countries, why is Spotify only available in 6?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotify_availability.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotify_availability.svg
It's nothing like Pandora.
For starters Pandora isn't available where Spotify is and vice versa.
You don't get any control over what Pandora plays (Spotify lets you choose specific songs to play).
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Licencing issues.
Obviously they'd like to be in more countries, but it's quite difficult to get the licences they need for the service to run.
They've made some changes that make the Free services they offer a lot less desirable, which should make more record companies in different countries join in.
I've been a premium subscriber to Spotify for 18 months and it has totally changed the way I feel about music: I don't care about owning it any more.
Back in the day, I used to buy a lot of CDs - probably 8 a month. It was a pretty hefty financial outlay and, to be honest, a pretty big waste of money. Very few CDs got more than a few listens and only the odd track here and there became a real favourite. Sometimes I felt I was only giving a CD repeat listens to justify the money spent.
With Spotify, I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want. I can listen through the week's new releases on a Monday morning, check out stuff that gets good reviews when I stumble across them, listen to the whole of a track I heard a snippet of in an advert etc. Mostly, they get one listen and are forgotten but a few make it to a playlist and a few of those become proper favourites.
The cost is 10% of what I used to spend on CDs in a month and I listen to far more music than ever. Played through my hi-fi it sounds pretty indistinguishable from CD quality, it's easy to copy albums and playlists to my iPhone to carry around with me and it works abroad when I travel.
I just can't imagine going back to buying a couple of CDs or downloading 10 or so tracks from iTunes each month for the same money.
Back in the day, I used to buy a lot of CDs - probably 8 a month. It was a pretty hefty financial outlay and, to be honest, a pretty big waste of money. Very few CDs got more than a few listens and only the odd track here and there became a real favourite. Sometimes I felt I was only giving a CD repeat listens to justify the money spent.
With Spotify, I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want. I can listen through the week's new releases on a Monday morning, check out stuff that gets good reviews when I stumble across them, listen to the whole of a track I heard a snippet of in an advert etc. Mostly, they get one listen and are forgotten but a few make it to a playlist and a few of those become proper favourites.
The cost is 10% of what I used to spend on CDs in a month and I listen to far more music than ever. Played through my hi-fi it sounds pretty indistinguishable from CD quality, it's easy to copy albums and playlists to my iPhone to carry around with me and it works abroad when I travel.
I just can't imagine going back to buying a couple of CDs or downloading 10 or so tracks from iTunes each month for the same money.
No one who's used the service can say it's like Pandora, which is good if you want to hear preselected music compatible with an artist or song (and sure, you can certainly get good hours of listening from that).
With Spotify and the American alternatives (Rdio, Mog, Rhapsody) you get to fully control what to listen to. So I can for instance stream Adele's full album. Imagine being able to listen to full songs rather than 30 (now 90?) second clips on iTunes. Granted the library's not going to be quite as extensive, but that's what you're paying for each month.
With Spotify and the American alternatives (Rdio, Mog, Rhapsody) you get to fully control what to listen to. So I can for instance stream Adele's full album. Imagine being able to listen to full songs rather than 30 (now 90?) second clips on iTunes. Granted the library's not going to be quite as extensive, but that's what you're paying for each month.
Spotify is good... but I just can't use it as a replacement for iTunes.
It needs things like ratings, smart playlists and a genius type feature.
I organize my iTunes with smart playlists from ratings of songs, all in a folder with the grid artwork layout. When I go and use Spotify...I just feel a little lost and have playlists with just one song in etc etc.
I also don't like the the dark design or current layout, but that's personal
It's a good service though.
It needs things like ratings, smart playlists and a genius type feature.
I organize my iTunes with smart playlists from ratings of songs, all in a folder with the grid artwork layout. When I go and use Spotify...I just feel a little lost and have playlists with just one song in etc etc.
I also don't like the the dark design or current layout, but that's personal
It's a good service though.
I still buy CDs from Flea Markets, Pawn shops and Goodwill for $1-$5 each. I keep a list of groups or albums I'm interested in and another of what I actually have and just pick up as I go. My song collection on my home main computer is between 20k-23k songs with dups (I tend to get 'Greatest Hits' when I'm not sure about a group).
The Cloud is worth nothing if carriers start or continue with data and bandwidth limits.
Go over your data cap, and you'll be paying through the nose for every MB. Not to mention the roaming charges! I want to listen to my music when I'm abroad too. At 8 bucks for every 1 MB (!!!!) I could buy more albums then I can keep in my house after a year!
If you take that into consideration, you'll know you'll be paying much more for Spotify than 9.99 a month!!!
Go over your data cap, and you'll be paying through the nose for every MB. Not to mention the roaming charges! I want to listen to my music when I'm abroad too. At 8 bucks for every 1 MB (!!!!) I could buy more albums then I can keep in my house after a year!
If you take that into consideration, you'll know you'll be paying much more for Spotify than 9.99 a month!!!
Not really. Spotify Premium lets you have 3000+ tracks at any one time on your iPhone/iPod Touch that you can listen to offline.
You can cache music offline using Wi-Fi (or 3G/EDGE/GPRS if your allowance is big enough)
I use Spotify a lot and I've never gone over my 750MB monthly allowance, in fact I dropped it down to 500MB.
could someone please clarify something for me please?
Is the playlist purchasing relating to buying mp3s like you would on amazon or itunes? as opposed to offline streaming with the premium service which means you can listen and sync playlists to your laptop / iphone - but licence the music instead for as long as you pay for the subscription? ...
Does streaming music from spotify hammer your data allowance? I'm worried about subscribing and then going over the o2 allowance (500mb right?)
Is the playlist purchasing relating to buying mp3s like you would on amazon or itunes? as opposed to offline streaming with the premium service which means you can listen and sync playlists to your laptop / iphone - but licence the music instead for as long as you pay for the subscription? ...
Does streaming music from spotify hammer your data allowance? I'm worried about subscribing and then going over the o2 allowance (500mb right?)