ReportWire

Tag: spotify premium

  • Spotify lossless streaming is finally here and it’s included with a Premium plan

    [ad_1]

    Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: over a half-decade of rumors, infrequent teases and affirmations that something is on the way, only for fans to impatiently bide their time and the thing to eventually arrive with very little advance warning. No, I’m not talking about this time. Spotify is finally that offers higher-quality music streaming.

    Best of all, the company is offering it to Premium members at no extra charge. You’ll get a notification once it’s enabled on your account. Starting today, Spotify is rolling out lossless audio in the US, UK, Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal and its home territory of Sweden. In all, Spotify Premium users in more than 50 markets will gain access to lossless audio by the end of October.

    The option is available on mobile, desktop and tablets, along with many Spotify Connect-compatible devices, including Sony, Bose, Samsung, and Sennheiser products. Spotify Lossless will make its way to Sonos and Amazon devices, as well as others, next month.

    Somewhat annoyingly, you’ll have to enable Spotify Lossless manually, and you’ll need to do that on each device on which you want to use it. To switch it on in the Spotify app, tap your profile icon in the top left, then go to Settings & Privacy > Media Quality. From there, you can choose to turn on lossless audio for Wi-Fi and cellular streaming, as well as your downloads. When it’s on, you’ll see a lossless indicator in the Now Playing view and the Connect Picker.

    Lossless streaming uses more data than other quality options, which is why Spotify is offering several settings for Wi-Fi, cellular and downloads so you (hopefully) don’t bust through any data caps you might have. You’ll be able to see how much data the various options — low, normal, high, very high and lossless quality — will use to help you figure out which way to go.

    Spotify Lossless offers up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC streaming. The company says the option means you’ll be able to stream in “greater detail across nearly every song available on Spotify.”

    Of note, the company says that you’ll get the best lossless experience when you stream music on Wi-Fi using wired headphones or speakers on non-Bluetooth connections, because Bluetooth doesn’t yet have enough bandwidth to support lossless audio. As such, if you try streaming lossless music with a Bluetooth connection, the audio signal will still be compressed before it reaches your ears. It might take slightly longer for each lossless audio track to start playing too, as your device might need to cache it to avoid mid-song stutters.

    “The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” said Gustav Gyllenhammar, Spotify’s vice-president of subscriptions, said. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”

    Gyllenhammar isn’t kidding about Spotify taking its time to offer lossless listening. It was reported that the company was “close” to delivering lossless audio. In 2021, Spotify said it would , but that didn’t happen and the company has largely kept mum about a higher-quality streaming option since (it said in 2022 a Spotify HiFi experience was , but declined to commit to a release window).

    Earlier this year, it was suggested that Spotify would finally offer a lossless option in 2025 and that it . Thankfully, that’s not quite the case, as Lossless is included with a $12 Premium subscription that will definitely not get more expensive at some point in the future. Nope, no way. In any case, including it with Premium puts Spotify on par with the likes of Apple Music, which has offered lossless streaming to paid subscribers at no extra cost . Now then, Spotify, about Dolby Atmos…

    [ad_2]

    Kris Holt

    Source link

  • Watch: Spotify kills the Car Thing

    Watch: Spotify kills the Car Thing

    [ad_1]

    Back in 2022, Spotify announced an in-car streaming gadget that was actually called the Car Thing — and then it discontinued the Car Thing just a few months later.

    That was obviously bad news for anyone who’d already paid $90 for the device. At the time, at least, Spotify said it would continue to support existing Car Things. Now, however, the company says all Car Things will stop working on December 9.

    Customers were understandably unhappy about the news, and they’ve been taking to TikTok and other social platforms to complain. One TikTok user wrote, “SPOTIFY PLEASE SPARE ME 😭😭😭 I LOVE MY CAR THING.” Some even filed a class action lawsuit claiming that Spotify misled them by selling a product that was about to go obsolete and then refusing to offer refunds.

    Spotify’s response has been all over the place. Some customers reported being offered several months of Spotify Premium, while others said they were told no one’s getting reimbursed at all. More recently, the company told TechCrunch that it’s instituting a refund policy for anyone who has proof of purchase.

    Hit play to learn more, then let us know what you think!

    [ad_2]

    Anthony Ha

    Source link

  • Spotify offers Car Thing refunds as it faces lawsuit over bricking the streaming device | TechCrunch

    Spotify offers Car Thing refunds as it faces lawsuit over bricking the streaming device | TechCrunch

    [ad_1]

    Spotify is facing continued backlash over its decision to discontinue support for Car Thing, its in-car streaming device, announced earlier in May. The device will no longer work starting on December 9, 2024, the company said. On TikTok, Gen Z users are posting videos to express their discontent with Spotify’s move and its recommended actions — like switching to Android Auto or CarPlay. Often, they didn’t have access to built-in infotainment systems in their car in the first place, making them a target market for a dedicated player like Car Thing, the users note.

    The streaming service’s in-car gadget hadn’t been out on the market long enough to make it obsolete. It launched in February 2022 and was discontinued later that same year but with promises to keep it operational for those who already bought units. Ahead of its launch, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had suggested there was consumer demand for such a product, telling investors on an earnings call that more than 2 million users had signed up on the Car Thing waitlist in anticipation of its release.

    Image Credits: Spotify

    Though Spotify never shared official numbers, it’s likely that Car Thing underperformed or was just not worth continued investment in today’s tighter economic market. The latter saw Spotify laying off around 1,500 staffers late last year, for example, after cuts earlier in the year that had affected hundreds.

    Car Thing users, however, don’t care about the company’s financial concerns; they just want their gadget to work, or at least be refunded for its $90 price tag.

    That’s led to some trying to directly complain to Spotify via DMs on X with @SpotifyCares or through various Spotify emails shared on Reddit. By doing so, some users reported that Spotify offered them several months of a Premium subscription to make up for their loss, while others claimed they asked customer service and were told no one was being reimbursed.

    Spotify tells TechCrunch that it has more recently instituted a refund process for Car Thing, provided the user has proof of purchase.

    The ability to reach customer support was officially communicated to Car Thing users in a second email that went out on Friday of last week after the backlash over Car Thing’s discontinuation had grown. In it, Spotify directs users to the correct customer support link to reach out to the company. The email does not promise any refunds, however, but says users can reach out with questions.

    While a refund may satisfy some portion of the user base that’s upset over Car Thing, many are still pleading with the company via TikTok videos and in the comments on Spotify’s TikTok posts to please not brick their device. (In fact, complaints about the Car Thing are now so common on Spotify’s videos that the algorithmically recommended search TikTok suggests on some videos is “what is the spotify car thing.”)

    “SPOTIFY PLEASE SPARE ME 😭😭😭 I LOVE MY CAR THING,” wrote Carla, a TikTok user who goes by the handle @carlititica on the service.

    “Sad,” wrote another user, @nikkilovestech. “It’s like they want people to use their phone which is distracting,” she wrote in the description of her video demoing a Car Thing mounted to her dash. In her video, she also commented on the e-waste that comes from discontinuing a product that still works “perfectly fine.”

    Spotify’s headaches around Car Thing’s discontinuation are not over yet, despite the newly introduced — if not widely broadcast — refund process. The company is also facing a class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which claims Spotify misled consumers by selling them a soon-to-be obsolete product and then not offering refunds, reports Billboard. The suit was filed on May 28.

    Spotify cannot comment on the lawsuit, but a spokesperson shared the following statement about Car Thing:

    The goal of our Car Thing exploration in the U.S. was to learn more about how people listen in the car. In July 2022, we announced we’d stop further production and now it’s time to say goodbye to the devices entirely. Users will have until December 9, 2024 until all Car Thing devices will be deactivated. To learn more about all of the ways you can continue to listen to Spotify in the car, check out For The Record, and Car Thing users can reach out to Customer Support with any questions: https://support.spotify.com/us/contact-spotify-support/

    Though the troubles around Car Thing won’t affect all of Spotify’s user base, the news comes at a time when users are already upset that they’re being asked to pay more for things they consider core to a music service, like access to lyrics, a feature Spotify recently paywalled. In addition to complaints over Car Thing, users are threatening to quit Spotify over the paid access to lyrics.

    In addition, Spotify upped its subscription rates last year, and another increase is on its way in 2024, Bloomberg reported.

    [ad_2]

    Sarah Perez

    Source link

  • Actually, Spotify Does Pay Their Artists

    Actually, Spotify Does Pay Their Artists

    [ad_1]

    After Universal Music Group, the largest record label in the industry, took all their artist’s music off TikTok after failure to reach an agreement on AI usage of their artists and safety…people are now more than ever looking into how artists are treated on platforms where their music is the main focus. For TikTok, it’s detrimental- they tried to punish UMG, and now they’re paying the price.

    At the 2024 Grammy Awards this Sunday, there were tons of controversial moments: should Taylor have brought Lana Del Rey onstage, should this person have won, what was that person wearing? But one of the more subtle digs was taken by host Trevor Noah, who commented on the UMG-TikTok battle by including another well-known streaming platform,

    “Shame on you, TikTok, for ripping off artists. How dare you do that? That’s Spotify’s job!”

    Without artists and their music, there would be no streaming platform to be had…and Spotify knows that, which is why they’ve been tracking their royalty payments to the music industry though their Loud & Clear report. The Loud & Clear report comes out every March and shows exactly how Spotify pays it back. According to their site,

    “Nearly 70% of that revenue is paid back as royalties to rights holders, who then pay the artists and songwriters, based on the agreed terms.”

    This means that whatever Spotify is making from these artists and labels, and their music, they’re making sure it gets back to them. It should be a mutually beneficial experience: one where both the artist and their representation feels safe that their work will be valued and protected (and thus, properly compensated), and where the platform also gains traction from the artist’s fans.

    Today, Spotify announced that they’ve paid labels over $9 billion to give us a glimpse of their Loud & Clear report. In an exclusive statement to Popdust, a Spotify spokesperson states,

    “Spotify paid record labels and publishers – which represent artists and songwriters – more money than ever in 2023: $9B+. That figure has nearly tripled over the past six years, and represents a big part of the $48B+ Spotify has paid since its founding.”

    [ad_2]

    Jai Phillips

    Source link