Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Spotify's Car Thing Accessory is Officially Dead
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think it should be illegal to sell a device that people buy only to then be remotely bricked like that. If that's not a waste of resources and money, then I don't know what is. It really breaks trust in these companies.
Instead they should say that you're renting the product from them, and when the lease is over, they come and get it from you or they issue a free shipping label to get it returned. But don't trick people by saying they're "bought" the product. This is 100% a service, not a product, and should be marketed and priced as such.
Meanwhile I still use the AUX port to play music in my car from my phone, and that still works. And it was free. You get rewarded for sticking with old technology.
Instead they should say that you're renting the product from them, and when the lease is over, they come and get it from you or they issue a free shipping label to get it returned. But don't trick people by saying they're "bought" the product. This is 100% a service, not a product, and should be marketed and priced as such.
Meanwhile I still use the AUX port to play music in my car from my phone, and that still works. And it was free. You get rewarded for sticking with old technology.
Interesting, but maybe we are moving in the green direction that soon cars will no longer be in use, because they will simply be too expensive to use, let alone keep. If there are no more cars, then we do not even need this hardware and software.
We will all be walking. The lucky ones will be on donkey carts.
We will all be walking. The lucky ones will be on donkey carts.
Four on the floor with an 8 track jammed in the dash is the way to go...
I was thinking about we you buy films from apple or any other studio you dont even own it. Even digital songs if they are only cloud based they can still take it away from you.
I think most potential customers realized this and didn’t buy that thing, which caused Spotify to discontinue it. There was never a market for this.
There's a good chance they fired the guy responsible for running the Car Thing (like the did the guy who created Spotify Wrapped) and that's why it needed to be shut down
Just read the description of this on the wiki page for it. So, other than being a bigger screen than a smartphone and less distracting user interface, it was the same as streaming music to your car stereo or over Bluetooth?
I’ll stick to CarPlay thanks 😂
I’ll stick to CarPlay thanks 😂
Allow me to rant for a moment.
That's the main reason I've never gotten into buying digital goods. I still buy cds, I buy movies on dvd/blu-ray, for the kids game console (switch), I only buy physical cartridges when they are available. Yes I don't "own" these goods in the sense that I don't have a license, but a physical cd can't be revoked and pulled from me at a moments notice. Ownership can be transferred at any time, and passed along with my estate the end. Streaming music is fine, and I subscribe to Spotify, but I still physically buy it often enough.
I'm sure glad that I'm not a gamer...that seems like a world of digital-only nonsense.
Last edited:
maybe the direction will be so green that we will replace all our computing devices with rocks and sticks?
the lucky ones will still be on donkey carts
It seems every single initiative Spotify has had in the past several years is to make themselves more money, not the artists
Well all the music you think you can access goes away in an instant when Apple pulls the plug.
But I understand many folks just don’t want to manage their own music library.
I own huge collection uploaded in to iTunes Match, but can’t beat the volume of songs on Apple Music. If you listen to same stuff, a personal collection works. When I look at my Apple Music listening minutes, it’s 40% what I own, and 50% from Apples collection. You can score free months if you know where to look. Life doesn’t have to be one or other, there are choices. What works for some may not work for others.
Depending on the contract, money probably goes to the owner/publisher, not the artist.
Have the same exact screen. It's very good! I've read that the cheaper ones are less bright, or don't connect as smoothly.I liked my Spotify Car Thing - I drive a 15 year old Mazda it doesn't have any screen. Much nicer UI to pick songs than trying to unlock phone and use Spotify while driving.
They gave me a full refund back when they announced discontinuation - but I had to ask for refund.
Now I have a "portable CarPlay Unit" - a whole genre of devices I didn't know existed. I'm using this one:
CarpodGo
www.carpodgo.com
BTW, people are repurposing the Car Thing, apparently:
Spotify’s Car Thing, due for bricking, is getting an open source second life
It’s more of a desktop thing now, but it has picked up some new features.
arstechnica.com
I have just over 10k songs in my streaming library. To own them would have cost $10k minimum. How much have I spent on Apple Music (and Spotify before that) in the 12 years since I started streaming? Only about $1500. Streaming is a fvcking bargain.
Literally the only reason I would ever care that I don’t “own” the library is some SHTF societal collapse situation where my phone can no longer communicate with the servers and I get locked out of Apple Music.
This thing was awesome to use as an extra screen, dedicated to music, while my car's main screen showed Waze. I'll miss it! RIP.
Exactly. Because designing it another way would have been more expensive, taken longer, or both.
There is absolutely nothing that requires a business to provide a device that will operate indefinitely. Aside from the fact that it’s impossible due to the laws of physics, at some point it becomes more difficult expensive than is worth it to try and make it that way.
Your Nintendo 64 is going to stop working someday. The disc drive will fail. The memory will fail. The power supply will fail. At some point a component will fail. And before you say “that’s different, it wasn’t designed that way”, oh yes it absolutely was. Because they could have used a more reliable disc drive. They could have added backup memory. They could have done a thousand things to make the device last longer. But they didn’t because every one of them would have added to the time or the price or both of the device. Everything in building a product is a trade off.
Again, if you want a device that will work offline then do your research and buy only such devices. As long as Spotify was upfront about the capabilities and requirements of the device then it’s on the consumer to decide whether it’s worth it or not, whether the capabilities and limitations are worth the cost.
The entitlement people have to expect companies or people to produce exactly what they want for the price they want regardless of the costs or effort involved is ridiculous.