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Spotify Updated With Home Screen Widgets on iOS 14

Chiromac81 said:
I really wish Spotify would allow downloads to the Apple Watch-kinda crazy that they don’t. Makes me consider switching to Apple Music sometimes just for this functionality
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Honestly speaking, I don't agree that it's Spotify who cause this but rather Apple not allowing them to do such feature on Apple Watch for very obvious reasons like Apple Music. For such restrictive attitude from Apple, Spotify is much limited on what they would like to do on those systems.. which again is one of the main frustration they meet working with/for Apple ecosystem. And that is well known fact. Apple wants you to pursue Apple Music without giving the competitor Spotify chance to be present equally on their ecosystem. This is called monopoly in one way or another. I am sure that Apple told Spotify that they can't put playback buttons on the widget, so their Applr music widget only gets it. Otherwise it make no sense why Spotify won't do it.
 
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My Apple Music subscription expired just as Widgets appeared. The only reason I didn't try Spotify was becsue they didn't have a widget. Their thinking isn't that flawed.
 
Why can’t it show the album artwork/ now playing like some third party widgets can. Like seriously who cares about recently played as a widget. If it can’t have controls on it at least looking at the music artwork would be nice not recently played.
 
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bumbo said:
To be fair, Spotify actually got this out the door pretty quick (I mean in Spotify-time of course)

And when you look at how long it normally takes them to develop additional features...
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Haha I was thinking exactly the same! I was expecting Spotify to add a widget next year at the earliest.
 
The Game 161 said:
Don't think that's Spotify doing...
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Maybe. Pandora and others have been able to get it done.

Perhaps too much bad blood between Spotify and Apple.

Apple's loss for me, I have $1,000 in Sonos speakers and won't throw any money at HomePod.
 
MacRumors said:


... as Apple does not allow Home Screen widgets to offer playback controls or toggles due to battery life considerations.
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this is THE most absurd baloney I’ve ever heard! You guys really need to stop standing for some of Apple’s baloney ya know.

It’s using more power to display the colourful widget as the entire screen is already awaiting for a capacitive touch contact regardless unless the screen is off!
 
bumbo said:
To be fair, Spotify actually got this out the door pretty quick (I mean in Spotify-time of course)

And when you look at how long it normally takes them to develop additional features...
Click to expand...

Was thinking the same thing. This is warp speed for Spotify which tends to move with the speed of a glacier. I am pleasantly surprised.
 
iStorm said:
I see so many posts about the widgets being useless if there are no control buttons. Is it really that much of an issue though? If your phone is locked, are you going to unlock your phone and find the widget to play/pause or skip? No, you can do it from the lock screen. If you're in an app, are you going to close the app and find your widget to play/pause or skip? No, you can do it from the Control Center. Yes, it would neat if the widget has controls for a cool factor, but I'm not really seeing how it would be useful unless you spend a lot of time on the home screen for whatever reason.
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Agreed. We have controls on the Lock Screen and in Control center. Plus give the devs some time to come up with more creative applications


Dephibio said:
What should I do because my Spotify widget is empty even after reboot?
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This is happening to me too.



j3x said:
Why can’t it show the album artwork/ now playing like some third party widgets can. Like seriously who cares about recently played as a widget. If it can’t have controls on it at least looking at the music artwork would be nice not recently played.
Click to expand...

This is a great idea, would be a nice option.

btw,I’m into stacking widgets from the same app, using it with stocks and Apollo right now. I think people are underestimating these widgets but there are so few available it’s hard to judge.
 
I'm wondering.

Does anyone know if "Apple does not allow Home Screen widgets to offer playback controls or toggles due to battery life considerations" is actually somewhere in Apple's official documentation?
Or is this just some explanation that MacRumors came up with?

I think it might actually be a UX choice, rather than a battery related choice.
Also because MacOS Big Sur gets rid of all the widgets that had user input (like the calculator etc.).
Absurd choice, dashboard widgets from 2005 were more convenient. Those had no problems with battery life.

So. Where can I find Apple saying anything about battery life in relation to widgets? @Joe Rossignol ?
 
I don’t mind the lack of controls but the fact that it doesn’t show the now-playing artwork makes it pointless for me. I know it’s probably the 5-minute refresh limit from Apple and I hope it gets improved in the future.
 
Chiromac81 said:
I really wish Spotify would allow downloads to the Apple Watch-kinda crazy that they don’t. Makes me consider switching to Apple Music sometimes just for this functionality
Click to expand...
Agreed, I much prefer Spotify's music discovery algorithms and for that reason I'm not planning to leave them, but their strategy of ignoring Apple products is really strange, it's going to drive the huge Apple user base further away from Spotify.
 
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