New services: Spotify for Sonos / Pandora Premium

Audio Gear Talk Music Services
1

At least there is something happening in the streaming market:

  1. You now can control Sonos speakers directly via the Spotify app (Link). Might this be an indicator that Spotify opens up at least a little bit?

  2. Pandora seem to release a direct Spotify competitor called Pandora Premium (Link). No exact timeline or pricing yet.

2

As a Spotify and Sonos user, this is the most wonderful thing I could have wished for. Spotify’s user curated and community voted-on playlists are worth the price of admission, all on their own; it’s why I disconnected from Tidal, where everything is curated by Tidal.

Before Sonos supported Spotify Connect, browsing playlists was cumbersome. No longer - now you just control your Sonos speakers (grouping, volume, everything) as an external Spotify device. You can also flip between the apps to mix content from Spotify and other streaming services or your local library (something the Sonos app sets the bar with).

Another thing Sonos discarded in their recent updates: the consuming queue and the whole “add to queue” and “multi-tap” model as the default. It’s still an option, but now the default is simply: tap and play, replacing the existing queue. Zip zop.