Spotify

607 'Spotify' stories December 2010 - October 2018

See All Stories

Spotify Podcasts on iPad

Spotify is a music streaming service that debuted in late 2008. It’s the most popular music streaming service in the world with over 200 million users (as of January 2019).

The free version allows users to stream songs for free with ads (mobile version only allows for shuffling). Paid users can have full access to the entire library for listening. Pricing is $9.99 per month for individual users and $14.99 per month for families (up to six people). There are additional plans for students that include bundled with Hulu. Apps are available for iPhone, iPad, macOS, and the web.

In early 2019, it purchased Gimlet Media and Anchor as a transition to becoming an “audio company” vs a music-only company.

Popular Articles

Spotify app gets streamlined navigation, personalized search, endless artist radio

Ben Lovejoy Oct 18 2018 - 4:02 am PT

spotify app

The iOS Spotify app has been updated to make it quicker and easier to play music you love.

First up is streamlined navigation, with three clear tabs.

Subscribers can get great recommendations on Home, discover something new with Search, and access favorite songs, artists, playlists, and podcasts in Your Library …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify criticized for controversial move geared to preventing abuse of family plan

Ben Lovejoy Sep 28 2018 - 6:04 am PT

Spotify is being heavily criticized for a measure it is taking in a move designed to prevent abuse of its family subscription.

Like Apple Music, Spotify offers a family subscription option which allows up to six members of the same household to share a single account …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple Music and Spotify push US paid streaming music subscriptions to 51M total

Ben Lovejoy Sep 17 2018 - 4:18 am PT

Apple Music Spotify

Apple Music and Spotify have pushed total US paid streaming music subscribers to 51M, a number that has almost doubled since the end of 2016.

Streaming music now generates 65% of all music industry revenue in the US, according to the latest data …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify iOS

Spotify

Spotify raises download limit to 10,000 songs on up to five devices at a time

Ben Schoon Sep 13 2018 - 8:07 am PT

Apple Music has been in a battle with Spotify for months now with both companies trying to one-up each other. Today, Spotify is adjusting its annoying download limit to let users store a lot more music for offline listening.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify giving songwriters and producers credit on iOS

Zac Hall Aug 14 2018 - 10:40 am PT

Songwriters and producers are finally getting the credit they deserve with Spotify on iOS. A recent update to the iPhone and iPad app introduced the ability to see songwriter and producer attribution — a feature previously missing and still absent on Android.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify

Spotify testing new ‘Active Media’ feature that lets users skip as many ads as they want

Chance Miller Aug 11 2018 - 3:19 am PT

apple enterprise certificates

Spotify’s free ad-supported tier has been controversial in the past over concerns about how much gets paid out to artists, but the company is purportedly planning to make changes that would allow users to skip ads in which they are uninterested…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify hits 83M paying subscribers, more than double Apple Music’s 40M

Ben Lovejoy Jul 26 2018 - 6:33 am PT

Spotify has announced that its paid subscribers rose 10% during Q2 to hit 83M. This is 8M up from the 75M it had at the beginning of the year …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify uses your music tastes to find festival tickets; Apple, please note

Ben Lovejoy Jul 24 2018 - 3:51 am PT

Festicket, an online booking service for music festivals, is using Spotify to find events featuring artists you like.

Once you connect your Spotify account to Festicket, the service uses a Spotify API to note your favorite artists and show you 10 matching upcoming festivals …

Expand
Expanding
Close

CIRP: Spotify’s high churn rate in the U.S. likely due to increased competition from Apple Music

Chance Miller Jul 23 2018 - 3:11 pm PT

apple enterprise certificates

It’s no secret that the streaming music industry has become incredibly competitive over recent years with the launch of Apple Music. A new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) analyzes Spotify’s Q2 2018 performance and the role Apple Music could have…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify thinks letting customers block followers is ‘a good idea’ but no plan yet to implement

Ben Lovejoy Jul 19 2018 - 6:37 am PT

Spotify has responded to a feature request for the ability to block followers, saying that it is a ‘good idea’ – but it has no current plans to implement it …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Major music distributor says Apple Music now has more US paying subscribers than Spotify

Ben Lovejoy Jul 6 2018 - 4:00 am PT

Music industry sources predicted back in February that Apple Music would overtake Spotify in US subscribers this summer, and a major music distributor says that this has now happened.

Both services are said to have more than 20M US subscribers, with Apple Music said to be ‘a hair ahead’ …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify iOS

Spotify

Spotify has begun licensing songs directly from artists, could potentially sidestep music labels

Peter Cao Jun 8 2018 - 11:05 am PT

Spotify has been a worthy competitor for Apple Music since the start. However, Apple arguably has the edge with artists and music labels because of the tight relationships Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine have with industry leaders.

Expand
Expanding
Close

apple enterprise certificates

Spotify

Big music labels sell over $1 billion in Spotify shares but insist not concerned about company’s future

Ben Lovejoy May 7 2018 - 7:27 am PT

Two big music labels have between them sold more than a billion dollar’s worth of their shares in Spotify, but one of them said that this move doesn’t reflect any concerns about the future of the company …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple Music vs Spotify: Which should you choose?

Bradley C May 6 2018 - 6:00 am PT

Apple Music vs Spotify

Apple Music and Spotify are the dominant players in the streaming music industry. Spotify just announced they have 75 million paid subscribers with 170 million total active users. Apple recently hit 40 million subscribers. It’s clear that both companies are a hit with consumers. In fact, the streaming music industry has revitalized the music business. I often get asked, how do I choose between Apple Music vs Spotify

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify iOS

Spotify now has 75 million paying subscribers, with a total of 170 million active users as of March

Peter Cao May 2 2018 - 1:36 pm PT

Spotify has been growing at a steady pace as it has been gaining more subscribers over time. Today, the company announced its first-ever earnings report as a public company.

Expand
Expanding
Close

EU proposes new laws following Spotify’s complaint against Apple

Ben Lovejoy Apr 26 2018 - 5:38 am PT

Apple Music Spotify

The European Union may be about to grant Spotify’s request for new laws that would impact the way in which it is treated in Apple’s App Store.

Spotify was one of a number of companies which had called on EU regulators to act against what they considered ‘unfair contract clauses‘ …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify enhancing free tier with 15 on-demand playlists, mode with 75% less data consumption

Zac Hall Apr 24 2018 - 7:07 am PT

Spotify held its major media event in New York City today where it announced a new version of its app that lets users play more popular music for free. Spotify says it is also reducing data consumption so users can stream more music without worrying about overages.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify

Spotify begins rolling out redesigned interface hinting at expanded free tier

Peter Cao Apr 17 2018 - 2:38 pm PT

A report last week indicated that Spotify plans to revamp its free tier to give users more control over the content they hear, while a separate report yesterday suggested that Spotify is planning a revamped app to accommodate that update. Now, early signs of that redesign appear to be rolling out…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify iOS

Spotify

Spotify to reveal new mobile app next week with voice control, possibly new hardware

Peter Cao Apr 16 2018 - 11:13 am PT

Spotify will be revealing a major update to its mobile application at an event next week, according to an invite obtained by The Verge.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify
Hulu

Spotify & Hulu partner to offer money-saving bundle & 99 cent three-month trial

Ben Lovejoy Apr 11 2018 - 7:22 am PT

Spotify and Hulu teamed up last year to offer a discounted bundle to students, and they have now done it again for the rest of us – though with some caveats …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify

Spotify reportedly plans to make free music streaming plan more flexible in move to grow user base

Chance Miller Apr 10 2018 - 1:50 pm PT

Shortly after officially going public, a new report indicates that Spotify is planning a new version of its free music platform. Bloomberg reports today that Spotify is “tweaking” its free music platform to make it easier to use, though details remain sparse…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify disputes earlier report that it lost to Apple Music in streams of The Weeknd’s new single

Ben Lovejoy Apr 5 2018 - 5:57 am PT

It was reported earlier this week that more Apple Music subscribers streamed The Weeknd’s new album, My Dear Melancholy, than Spotify members. This seemed like something of a coup for Apple given that it has around a quarter of Spotify’s subscriber base – all the more so when Spotify had two exclusive music videos from the EP.

But Spotify now apparently disputes this, bizarrely claiming that it initially provided the wrong numbers …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify forecasts 92-96M paying users by year-end, against Apple’s current 36M

Ben Lovejoy Mar 26 2018 - 6:44 am PT

Spotify has just published its financial outlook for the full year 2018, and says that it expects to have between 92M and 96M paid subscribers by the end of the year. This compares with the 36M last-known number of paid Apple Music subscribers …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Spotify

Spotify reveals that 2 million users are listening to ad-free music without paying

Peter Cao Mar 23 2018 - 10:18 am PT

Spotify iOS

Apple’s stance on streaming music is that there’s no such thing as free music. The company offers a three-month free trial, and charges $9.99 a month onwards if the user decides to continue using the service. Apple Music’s biggest rival, Spotify, however offers a freemium tier, which allows users to play music for free but will serve up ads every couple of songs and restricts the order of songs played.

Expand
Expanding
Close