Android App Frustrations/Rants

[Gidgiddonihah]

I am tired of waiting for an update that will do anything more than nothing.  So I thought I would be nice to give a wakeup call to Spotify.  Post here if you are dissatisfied with the app in any way including:

• Bugs
  • Play button stops working
  • Crashes
  • Buffering problems
  • I just got kicked out of the app and sent into the sign in page (downloaded content was still there)
  • Nexus 4 won't stream over wifi when the screen is off
  • Any other.  I will try to keep track and post more as I see them

• Lack of features
  • SD Storage
  • Better Search
  • Better Discovery (This covers the desktop app as well)
  • Tablet Version/Proper Landscape support
  • Local File Playback
  • Playlist Sort
  • Playlist Shuffle Play (like on the iOS app)
  • OS Integration (Notification bar controls, etc)
  • Any other.  I will try to keep track and post more as I see them.
• Anything I am missing.  Again I will continue to add stuff as I see them.

My rant:

It is utterly ridiculous that it’s taken a year to do.............. (wait for it.....) NOTHING. I can't even think of one bug fix or feature request that has been fulfilled and I am not nearly the only one asking for these fixes.  The community is literally saturated with people complaining, ranting, and providing suggestions and what do you do?  Nothing.  The iPad has had a rock solid app for almost a complete year and we Android users have had to suffer with the lack up updates to a feature lacking, buggy app.  

I am paying money for a service in college where money is already really tight.  People who create entire ROM's/Kernels have lives, families, jobs, and do it for free. They are also able to push things out much faster.  I have gone from 4.0.4 to 4.2.1 with at least (being very conservative here) 25 updates in between before getting a single one from Spotify.  Your Android dev team is either incompetent or plain lazy.  Either way is unacceptable for a international business that asks for a monthly fee.  Rdio pushes updates pretty much weekly as I have the app on my phone to keep track.  If competition steps up their game (Rdio just has to push quality to the top of their list or MOG make their interface better) and I am gone.  No question, no hesitation.  You will lose my money and a competitor will gain it. 

Please all, the more that post the more credible the dissatisfaction is and the more chance Spotify may consider finally listening. Or maybe this thread will be deleted and/or no one will post.  Who knows.

[Dollg123]

I'm not usually one to post to forums or actively spend twenty minutes looking for a place to complain, so I apologize if this is the wrong place for this. If you don't mind, I'd really love to add to the rant list. Even though it's three years later, this still resounds with me.

I recently switched from iPhone to Android and I've loved it so far. I'm learning a lot trying to figure out how to get this piece of metal to be exactly what I want it to be, but the one app I can't personalize is Spotify and, honestly, it haunts me. I won't rehash anything but the thing that drove me to find a place to vent is the fact that I try to click the "..." in a long playlist to add a song to my up next and it jumps halfway to nowhere down the playlist. I scroll back up and press it delicately and it still jumps at least five layers down to you know where (I'm being civil, it's the small things that break us). Can we PLEASE get the swipe feature to add or save songs like on iPhone? Or at least make the button on the other side so I can hit the friggin thing without it registering the touch as something completely different? Ugh. I hope someone sees this.

[JayMars]

Bugs:

-Switching songs sometimes results in the sound completely disappearing even though it shows the song progressing

-Switching songs too fast sometimes results in crashing

Missing features:

-A better radio. Okay, so I Thumbed Up two songs. I don't need the next million songs to ALL be by those bands. Especially when the playlist I started the radio from has 50 different artists. At least let us reset the Thumbs Up.

-Can a brotha sort a playlist? darn.

-Lockscreen and/or notification center controls

I know I'm kidding myself though. This is my second time being a premium member and the "Support" (I could not be using that term any looser) doesn't seem to have changed a bit from my iPhone days. I had the problem of the radio not working on iOS 5.1.1 which was COMPLETELY ignored by moderators and developers. Wonder if that ever got fixed. You guys are lucky Pandora doesn't have an on demand service.

[Gidgiddonihah]

I don't get what's so hard about throwing a few new features on.  It's been a year, plenty of time for a few new features and real bugs to be taken care of.

[jbrizz]

My Nexus 4 won't stream over wifi when the screen is off. Seems to be an issue with the Spotify app not using the correct API call

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Android-app-wifi-power-management-streaming-fix/idi-p/...

Pretty major bug.

[Gidgiddonihah]

I added from what has been posted and what I remembered.  Hopefully this is a good place for their devs to pick up on what is missing and not working as its all in one spot.  Keep the posts coming guys! Rants, horror stories, bugs, feature requests, etc are all fair game!

[tj127]

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@Gidgiddonihah wrote:

… Hopefully this is a good place for their devs to pick up on what is missing and not working … .

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Yeah right. 😞 More like “continue to ignore their users and implement features no one needs — if any”.

[Gidgiddonihah]

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@tj127 wrote:

Yeah right. 😞 More like “continue to ignore their users and implement features no one needs — if any”.

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I was being uber positive :).  I agree that unless every user poster here saying they were going to quit they will pay any attention.  They haven't so far.

[beowulfey]

Well, I'll start. I canceled my subscription. I'll come back if they fix anything. 

[beowulfey]

Guess I might as well post here too, I definitely need to vent a little. You're right though, there are a ton of problems with this app. It works, but it's far and away from being good...

My biggest complaints:

• no landscape mode w/o hacks
• can't save to SD card w/o hacks
• cacheing is weaksauce (barely finishes a track at a time and doesn't store it at all)
• can't playback music already on your phone
• library browsing is a mess (this is a problem on the desktop too - there isn't any way to see music you've downloaded other than playlists and I make a LOT of playlists. it's a pain to scroll through them all every time)
• OS integration isn't great (like playback controls in the notifications pane)
• frequent freezing, internet troubles, downloading troubles, millions of tiny little bugs like that
• literally zero updates

I love spotify, I really do. I WANT to love you guys. But I feel seriously neglected as a user (especially an Android user), and I'm having a hard time continuing to justify the service. I know you guys are busy but just give us something to show you still care!

[miljbee]

And now that I managed to sync all my playlists to my sd. I realize that the app still consumes data. 35mbps in just a few days. Unbelievable.

[Peter__]

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@miljbee wrote:
And now that I managed to sync all my playlists to my sd. I realize that the app still consumes data. 35mbps in just a few days. Unbelievable.

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It sounds like you are experiencing this known bug.

Peter

[miljbee]

Not sure that it makes any difference if it's known or not considering the other old kown bugs ...

[fu2013]

the android app is making me agressive. i'm about to cancel my subscription. since four month new playlist issues persist. I got up earlier this morning to dwnld all the playlists for a train ride. now even while playing they disappear from my phone. stop playing during titles. want my money back and wish i had never subscribed to a poor “premium“ service like yours. as soonas i'm home i'm gonna unsubscribe from this crap.

[ryebreadz28]

I'm having the playlist issue now. I have a bunch saved on the phone, but any I try to add now simply do not download. It says they're downloaded, but as soon as I put it on airplane mode, they're not there.

How hard is it to get songs to download to a device? I'm giving this another week before I cancel and go to a competitor.

[metalrider]

Move ahead spotify!

[Peter__]

Just dropping a post on here to let you know I am moving your post over to the Android section of the community as this relates directly to the android app.

Peter