Spotify changes
Since Spotify did a redesign at the weekend I reckon they've changed the quality of the stream. It sounds more compressed than usual. I'm on the Unlimited rather than the Premium package.
Is it just me or is this another way of trying to get me to shell out for the increased quality of the top deal?
Anyone agree, or have I screwed my ears?
Uffie
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i can't drag stuff into the play queue anymore
yeah, it's weird how you suddenly can't drag and drop tracks. You can however play the song and drag it. Or drag from the search results view...
I thought this was maybe just me
I'm getting exactly the same problem...
if you go into preferences
there's a setting for high quality streaming.
oh wait sorry.
didn't read properly
If you're using premium
Couldn't tell you, as far as I'm aware it's the same but I'm on premium so get HQ streams
but the performance seemed to take a hit for a couple of days, seems better since the latest patch
I dont like the latest design of the premium app.
However, as I'm om my fourth months free trial I suppose I shouldn't complain too much.
Wha?
how?
Stay away from any attempts to direct you to facebook. Register
through Spotify, use different email addresses.
I would have that would also require different payment cards
maybe not...
Nope
"Is it just me or is this another way of trying to get me to shell out for the increased quality"
OH HOW TERRIBLE, MAKING YOU PAY FOR MUSIC! THOSE EVIL BASTARDS!
Are they still paying artists <1p a play?
Probably.
But they ARE paying.
If you feel bad about them not getting any money then I guess you buy the albums like I do.
What's the view like up there?
Pretty ironically smug, dude. Maybe you just need to re-read what I wrote.
it varies slightly, but
SPOTIFY AD SUPPORTED Stream Full Price Exch Rate:1 0.00 16,211 0.0027
SPOTIFY PREMIUM Stream Full Price Exch Rate:1 0.01 32,130 0.0085
the key figure there being 0.0027 per play from non paying peeps and 0.0088 for premium member plays (and i think that covers unlimited though not sure)
and that's to the label, not the artist..
so slash another 75% off that..
The higher does cover Unlimited
As far as I know the problem with the figures is they're averaged. Different labels will be on different rates. Or at least, I'm aware of labels being paid a markedly different rate to the usual quoted rates.
Of course there's also an individual artists deal as well.
Oh great, this again
It's either a service to preview albums to see if you'll buy, in which case quality isn't much of an issue.
Or it's a replacement for ever having to buy music again, in which case £10 a month isn't really a big deal.
Pretty sure that's not what I said
Paying for the service and the price they charge isn't what I'm talking about. I'm happy to pay, and I do pay £4.99 a month (mainly because I don't have a smartphone and the standard quality was appropriate for my needs until now so Premium wasn't worth the extra fiver).
What I'm not happy about is the feeling that I was paying for a certain quality of stream (let's call it X) and now I'm getting a poorer quality stream (x-1) and I'm still paying the same amount. The only way for me to get X would be to pay twice the price.
The music I pay for remains the same, but the quality appears to have changed. FWIW, it hasn't changed too much, and for what I still gain for my fiver a month it isn't a deal breaker, but there is a perceptible difference.
This is, of course, the problem with any subscription service. Any changes to the product while customers are paying the same amount can be problematic. It's one of the many reasons I still like to buy shiny plastic disks.
I always thought you weren't paying for stream quality with unlimited, that's what Premium is for.
Unlimited is for people who want to be able to play a track more than 5 times and with no limit and, crucially, ad-free. That is the service you pay for and it hasn't changed.
Moreover, it's a fiver a month, which is nothing. The fact is ten a month isn't that bad so if you feel the stream quality is important then pay for it: right now you're not, so it's no good complaining on those terms.
Has everyone else got the white iTunes-style background now?
Really don't like it at all. Not easy on the eye and the whole thing's really slow and clunky since the (second to) last update.
aye the white background is absolutely honking
lots of people complaining about it on their forums, they should really let people install winamp style skins
Yep.
It's crap, isn't it? Big reason I liked Spotify was because of the darker design, it just looked better, and meant I could leave my computer screen on without it being crazy bright.
I use Deezer now.
Seems a bit better.
Never heard of it
thanks for your valuable contribution to the discussion.
(*psst* thewarn - I think he's talking to you)
it's updating right now, apparently
so i'll let you know. the new iphone app UI is using that really anooying Sidebar feature that Facebook, Gmail and Youtube uses. I really hate it.
okay;
- playlist length going away is utterly mental. luckily they've confirmed it'll come back. can't believe that was removed! I used it all the time to time podcasts. fucking hell.
- the white back ground is ok, but the main problem is that the list that I loved is now gone. i can't do any of the sorting i sued to do. mental. i want to go back to the list view.
- the whole following thing is a bit strange. for some reason it added a range of wildy different artists to my following thing but none of my mates. i don't want to follow artists - why would i? they don't do anything! changed it to be my mates and the wee activity sidebar is back to what it used to be. i found Applescal there last week just looking at what plasticniki was playing.
Yeah, she pointed me to him via mentioning it here or on Twitter or something.
HI GUYS
Is that Ritter Sport all over your face?
:)
YUP
However, the webplayer is ace
http://play.spotify.com
they have a web player now?! Excellent, might be able to use it at work now.
and you can now sign up without having to use facebook, so I shall create a separate account. Excellent.
Woah! Web player
That's all shades of total ace.
All is forgiven for the shit white background.
Does this scrobble to last.fm?
Can't see anything in the settings about it.
I don't think so.
Yeah, it does
Preferences > Scrobble to last.fm, right at the top
Ah sorry
You're on about the webplayer, in which case I'm not totally sure.
I've found the web player really shitty and unreliable
The web player won't load up on my tablet
No matter how long I wait. :(
I updated my work one to see how it looks
and I won't be updating it at home until they sort it the fuck out. It was pretty much perfect for what I use it for, now it's uglier and clunkier. PROGRESS.
Spotify sub-question
Anyone know of a way to make it work with Airplay? It works in the app but I'd rather stream from my PC than drain my phone battery. CHEERS.
Ps. I just updated and as far as I can tell it looks the same as before.
...
http://www.spotidj.com/blog/stream-spotify-to-your-audio-system-using-airplay/
Ta
Is paying for Airfoil the only route? :(
I believe so.
Airfoil is pretty good
Worth $25.
You can't star albums again now
ffs
Irritating
but shift + click the songs, then right click and select star. It's a fix that shouldn't need to be a fix, but it works.
The new white screen sucks absolute anus
Especially as the rest is still charcoal grey.
Fucking design wank.
Also, I don't understand the "follow" button for bands
what does that do. If I "follow" Metallica, what does that mean?
I've actually googled this and got no answer.
does it not just mean that you're notified whenever new tracks are put on the page?
dunno though. who knows.
I don't care about the white screen
though it looks odd when it's only on some of the pages.
But is going to give me a PLEASE BUY PREMIUM pop up every time I open it now?
not a fan of the white and the weird center-aligning of everything
big fan of them introducing grid view
library of local files still totally blows though
also the label search function is massively better
you can now see-all artists or records on grid view
http://i.imgur.com/dlKtMjP.png
no idea what the ordering is (or why loads of artwork is suddenly missing) but it looks really nice
I've never got the label search to work
Weirdly. Might just be my set up.
you have to use quotation marks if the name is more than one word
so sub pop is
label="sub pop"
sorry
label:"sub pop"
What's the grid view? How do I get it?
Why is it telling me to follow the XX
I can only imagine how dull their music taste is
all artists have a follow function now
I presume this is the start of an attempt to further social-media-ise the platform, so they can provide (/sell) access to artists to spam stuff your way
It's trying to be twitter
I don't like having followers, though I'm just 150 shy of 1,000... so now I want to hit 1,000, fucking statistics warping my brain.
Are we still talking about Spotify?
I haven't noticed any changes at all...
No changes for me either.
Maybe a UK only thing at this point?
Not changed for me
And I'm in the UK.
.
the new design is horseshit. I hate it. the old one was so perfect.
Accidentally followed Katy Perry.
What happens now?
restraining order
I buy albums
And either preview them on streams from DiS or others or take a punt based on blogged tracks or amazon previews. Artist gets their cash, no quality issues.
Just reinstalled it and it's STILL the same for me
Come on, I want the new version!
You don't.
Not fond of the new white background design
The new updates bar seems a bit clunky too. Still love Spotify though - it's massively changed my music habits. Now, I tend to only buy albums of the month that I REALLY want to 'own', but it really puts the whole ownership question under the spotlight.
is it half-finished? Or updating gradually?
some of it is still in the old style and some in the new, looks horrible. And why can't you drag songs to the playlists or press space to play/pause? Slightly annoying
The biography section is fucking horrible.
It also seems to be slower when loading artwork. I HATE CHANGE
what does 'web player' mean
i've got a premium account but have 0 idea about this web player of which you speak. clearly being a dimwit here but enlighten me by all means.
i don't usually give out about changes to stuff like this
but yeah, they've really dropped the ball here.
It's like unfiromaly black
but for some silly reason the moment you click on an artist page it goes white, it's really amateur.
Mine hasn't updated yet.
What.
Don't be too upset
you'll probably look back at this pre-update time as a golden age.
must be a roll out
no changes with mine at all
After much praise of Rdio's sleek design...
I can't help but feel Spotify are trying to emulate it somewhat. As it stands, it just looks a bit tacky. Shame - I actually think the new layout would look pretty good if it was consistent with the rest of the colouring.
rdio's great
i had the free trial and prefered it in a lot of ways.
its not got as many songs on it though
Has the font changed on anyone else's since the most recent update?
Sounds like a minor thing but it looks FUCKING AWFUL. All the writing seems to be bold, and the spacing is ridiculous, it's hurting my eyes to looks at. I feel like I'm using a special impaired vision version.
Seems to be getting worse with every update at the moment.
might want to screen cap that
as i've not see it.
there is a fair few major threads over on the spotify community though. check there.
Is it just me or has it become an unwhealdly beast of an application now?
Used to like how quick it would load and how little memory it used.
Not noticed that
But what really fucks me off is the mini now playing bar at the bottom which has put the pause button in the exact place you rest your thumb on your phone. So I'm constantly pausing it as I go to put it back in my pocket. GRRRRRRRRR
Was talking about the desktop version
Takes about 5 mins to load on my PC now without any other applications running. Might be that I need to uninstall some of the applications I don't use.
The latest desktop update
Seems to have increased the size of the font and the spacing. Kind of prefer it. They really need to sort out the start-up time of the program though. It takes ages and just seems to hang for an eternity before doing anything.
This is really annoying
I've had it just freeze and not bother loading up at all a bunch of times. Really irritating.
right so the spacing thing is quite nice and the font change too
but the rest of the application is garbage. as the last version.
thread is here: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/Give-us-your-feedback-0-9-0/td-p/366422
It's got a nice new icon though!
Same old Spotify
Always fixing the important things...
ctrl + -
Is it just for me that it takes an age to load?
used to load in a couple of seconds.
Downloaded the newest version
they seem to have fixed it.
Oh really?
I'm using 0.8.5 until I see several good reviews of a new client
Still slow as a dog with no legs for me
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/music/4427069#r7456428
Yeah actually installing the new version seems to have made it even slower.
Started up my computer today and it's ridiculous again.
did you post some instructions about installing the old version and preventing auto-updates?
thought you did but can't find it. New version takes AGES to load, so slow and sluggish.
yeah its still slow now actually
had like one day where it worked alright but now back to crap
Sporadically it loads quickly for me
but I'd say 95% of the time it's at least five minutes to open. No idea why it sometimes loads quickly mind.
Instructions
downloaded an old version from here:
http://www.filehorse.com/download-spotify/11842/
(thanks to AbsolutelyNoFB)
and then used this
Go to C:/Users/<Name>/Appdata/Roaming/Spotify
1. Make a new empy text file
2. Name it Spotify_new.exe
3. Right click the file and make the file read only
1. Make a new empty text file
2. Name it Spotify_new.exe.sig
3. Right click the file and make the file read only
Spotify will not be able to update because it can't delete the files, because they are read only, all future upgrades will fail.
This method is easy to use and permanent.
Ignore this, it appears they've made it so you can no longer use this version of Spotify
the cunts
It works again
if you want to revert then feel free to
It's incredibly slow
And seems to want to update itself far more often.
Yeah it's taking the piss how long it takes to load
I just timed how long it took to load up for me and it was almost 6 minutes ffs!
ONLY 3 mins 4 secs for me.
I tried the Spotify app free trial on the ipad
...never will be paying for that - it was awful. I couldn't even see the play queue which was immensely frustrating. Not liking the PC update either...might have to check out the google-play-thing-with-the-really-long-name
Apart from the play queue not being visible thing
I really like the iPad app, I've never had any real problems with it.
the whole not showing me a playlist length is irritating me
Does anyone see any improvement in this new version at all?
not sure i've ever seen an update this inexplicably rubbish.