Car Thing: well, people already have a far superior device for that: a phone. No one wants to navigate through Spotify using that knob. I have a version of the Spotify app built into my car and it’s annoying to use, as it only shows about 12 things in a selected category (Albums, Playlists, et al.). Sure, you can use Alexa (also built into my car) to voice navigate the built-in Spotify app, but that’s also annoying unless you know exactly what you want to play (and can recall the correct title for voice recognition). I like to browse by album cover based on a genre or artist.
The crappy built-in Spotify app and the iOS/Android app’s insistence on auto-starting playback via Bluetooth is the main reason I stopped using Spotify and switched back to Apple Music and CarPlay.
In a recent statement when asked by Golem.de, Spotify said, “Both artists and fans have told us that HiFi quality is important to them. We agree and look forward to offering Premium users a Spotify HiFi experience in the future, however we are currently unable to provide further details.” It is therefore unclear when Spotify Hifi will launch.
Not true at all I know lots of people without phones. Also as mentioned not all of us have newer cars and not all use Apple hardware. My car is 18years old it has a cd player only, no bluetooth, no gps nothing. No hurry to change my very reliable car so I can use carpay or Andorid Auto.
Lots of people without phones? Must be older people or Amish (?). And why would those techno-phobe people then want to buy a Spotify device?
With an 18-year-old car, you’re also part of a minority. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Just saying …
Plenty of new car manufacturers (mine is an example with my 6 month old car) require you to pay a hefty premium for the inclusion of Apple Carplay as an optional extra for around £300. I, like many others, chose not to pay that premium.
I understand that, but I still don’t get why you would need the Car Thing. It has to be connected to your phone (via bluetooth). So you need a phone anyway (where you have the Spotify app), and why would you want to have two devices stuck to your dashboard? Plus: is Spotify encouraging drivers to twiddle around with a music player while driving? Oh right, voice control – we know how well that works with Google, Amazon, and Apple. But Spotify will do better of course …
I have the Car Thing in my 10-year-old car, which doesn’t have a display. Having this Thing on my vent grill spares me the temptation to look down at my phone to see what’s playing, or to use the phone to skip tracks. The voice command works surprisingly well.
This is not a revolutionary product in any sense - and I don’t think the R&D for this Thing has had any impact on providing lossless streaming! - but it’s a fine, cheap addition that adds just a little bit of functionality to an old car.
Then why would Spotify offer it ? You are correct though,I’m sure most of their subscribers could care less.
It does make them look really bad though if they can’t keep promises to their customers.
Agree it does not look good for those who care to watch.
It could have been a marketing tactic to cost Apple more money in Streaming costs and cause Apple to look elsewhere.
Let’s be honest it did not start well for Apple and Spotify got a feel good factor out of that, but it has settled down now and again only a few million people even noticed
On a more positive outlook, they could be reviewing the impact on Spotify connect devices given the bad news out of the gate for Apple, and many would prefer that if the rollout goes smoothly in the end.
If only we knew someone who could comment on that without getting himself in serious trouble
Spotify is winning and its users could care less about lossless.
If I were spotify I would hold off introducing lossless as long as possible given it makes them no additional revenue (per sub), their users don’t care (enough to switch) and it increases their costs.
If anything i think this was a smart move from Spotify, they have lowered the profitability of most of their competitors (Google also hasn’t made the switch) and they are still the top streaming service.
