Car View missing

[jordypeatpeat]

Plan

Premium

Country

New Zealand

Device

Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G

Operating System

Android 11 

My Question or Issue

As of today the 'Car Mode' is missing from my settings. I have it on all the time for driving before and after work, but when I started playing music this morning it defaulted to the main play view with no sign of the setting.

Is this feature removed or is it a bug? Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks!

[jordypeatpeat]

Hey @jordypeatpeat,

Thanks for posting here.

We can confirm that we're retiring the car view feature. This however doesn't mean we don't want to improve on how our users listen to Spotify while driving. On the contrary, we're actively exploring a variety of new ways to deliver the best in-car listening experience. Think of retiring car-view as something that needs to happen in an effort to make way for new innovations coming down the track.

Please bear with us for the time being. While we work backstage on improving the experience, one alternative would be to listen hands-free via Google Assistant. This feature also works with Google Maps so you can navigate while listening to Spotify. In order to do that, you can link your accounts and say ‘Hey Google, play Spotify’.

If available to you, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay both have Spotify integrations that you can link to your phone and a specifically designed for a driving environment.

We hope you understand. Stay tuned for further developments!

All the best and safe driving.

[toad_milk]

Spotify, you are taking a step backward and your Car Thing is just one of your shenanigans to cash on us more. I've been a solid user for 4 years, borderline 5 now, and this is the first time that I've been this fed up with your service. 
Your staff and answers did NOTHING to ensure us that the old, reliable feature will be back anytime soon. In the meantime, we will just have to 'deal with it' (from what I get with your copy-pasted answers) until an 'innovative solution' comes along. The Car Thing isn't even available in my country, and rest assured I will NOT spend a dime on it if this is the way you treat your users, Spotify. 
I will start looking for alternatives if you don't bring back the Car View.

[toad_milk]

(edited because double posting) But once again, bring back the Car View!

[Davey1972]

Honestly this sucks. Bring back car view!! Your reasoning is anti your customers!

All the music sounds the same to me through any of the streaming apps BUT the ability to listen to it safely in the car was THE deciding choice for me. So I guess it's goodbye Spotify?

Follow up question; does anyone know what of the other music streamers have a car view mode??

[Denis29]

Now if the programmers at Spotify put their collective thoughts together I think they could come up with a way to get Spotify to display on the car radio screen just like iTunes does, you must keep CAR VIEW for those that dont have the fancy digital head units though.

Do we want Spotify TINY screen, bottom left hand corner where you have to squint to see Artist and Song or the Head Unit Display that iTunes displays, I know what I want. - Come on you programming gurus at Spotify, you can do it, I dare you.

[Rhah]

@Davey1972

Amazon Music has a car mode.

Way to go Spotify. Thanks for throwing all of us motorcycle riders under the bus to peddle your useless car thing BS.

You've just made it A LOT more difficult and unsafe for motorcyclists to enjoy music while riding for some ridiculous and inane reason and then not even offering the anything as a stop gap. Looks like I'm canceling my premium sub and going back to Amazon Music.

This. This is how you lose paying subscribers.

[dissociated_spirit]

Bring back car mode!!!!

[Jakub15]

I feel the company is really doing us dirty with removing car view to spearhead the new "Car Thing" sells. I've been using Spotify for almost 3 years now and I NEED the car view since I drive long distance trips and I cannot afford to risk my safety to unlock my phone's screen then booting up the app while driving on a highway, there is absolutely no point for either me or my friends to keep paying our subscriptions since the comfortable car view was basically a deal breaker for us between Spotify and the competition. The car thing is not available in my country, I don't own a car with an android radio and it's safe to say that I'm highly disappointed with the provided services considering the company offers no alternative to the removed feature. Also to the workers dealing with managing the forums, no hard feelings, most of us should know the company would be after you if you provided us with anything more than a copy-paste formula so have a nice day and stay strong with the negative comments until the company decides to drop the predatory strategies:)

[Unevendanglies]

Shane. I like to have my Spotify showing while I'm driving. Display now guess to sleep. So. There is an app in Playstore called Spotify Stations. It plays all your Spotify stuff. You may have to re populate your lists/artists BUT Car Mode is up and working.

[catedesmonica]

Hi Davey1972

I've only been able to find amazon who has a dedicated car mode and I've no idea what their service is like. I intend to keep looking for possible alternatives. 

[Denis29]

Today I spent 45 minutes on line with 6 different Spotify customer care agents, each one dropped off because the question I kept asking was too hard for them to answer and that question was why RETIRE (agent term) CAR VIEW, you are aware without it you are endangering lives.
Here's the last few lines of our chat:
Agent - Don't worry. Car Thing is not the replacement of the old feature.
Agent - Sorry to hear you're unhappy with the recent update. I’ll be sure to let the right folks know.
We're always aiming to improve our features so I hope you’ll continue to use it and find it gets better in future.Thanks for the feedback.
Me - then why retire CAR VIEW when there isnt an improvement
Agent - Rest assured we're looking into launching new features along the road.
Me - Thanks for that and I can only hope that with the next upgrade something that resembles CAR VIEW hits our screens.
Agent - Our goal is to for (sic) Spotify users to make the most of their music experience and of course with convenience. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
this ended the conversation.
I hope the Agent does let the right folk know that there are a lot of unhappy SPOTIFY users on the road.

[catedesmonica]

Very unhappy users!!! I'm so peeved that they just wiped car view with no warning and no replacement. It's virtually made it impossible for me use spotify while driving. The problem with spotify agents is they don't even know what's going on. I'll be looking for a more user friendly alternative. 

[bashcaus]

With all due respect, what the moderators are writing is corporate gibberish that doesn't explain anything.

If you don't have anything new at the moment, ready to be proposed and implemented (because you are, as you wrote, allegedly working on it), why have you withdrawn something that worked ?!
We had a functionality that worked great and was used by us in cars to easily control the app with our smartphones and also outside cars to keep the app always on the display without turning off the screen - and now we have ... nothing!

This is not progress - it is regression!

A short and simple question, requiring a short and simple answer: are you going to restore this functionality in the old or renewed form?

[catedesmonica]

The reason they've "retired" car mode/view is to force people to buy "car thing",despite it not being available outside the USA. 

Instead of car mode it has how to set up the "car thing" . Doesn't pass the sniff test it's more like a cash grab.  Unconscionable behaviour on the part of spotify.

[Unevendanglies]

Play Store. Search for Spotify Stations. It's free. It uses Spotify in your
account and you can have a list of stations to listen to. When you're in
the car there's a little picture of a car on the top right that when you
press it it puts it into car mode and your display stays on during travel.

[osiris247]

Think of retiring car-view as something that needs to happen in an effort to make way for new innovations coming down the track.

Usually this is done when the replacement tech is incompative with the current tech. Since you have offered no replacement, I believe this statement to be complete B.S. lip service.

At LEAST give us back the toggle to keep the screen ON at ALL TIMES.

[Denis29]

Yeah, I forgot all about the screen ON AT ALL TIMES toggle.

SPOTIFY you are letting your subscribers down.

[Jamfreddie]

Since Car Mode seems to have gone, I need a new way to keep my phone awake whilst streaming in my car as music goes glitchy the moment the screen times out. My current phone only allows me to set this to a maximum of 10 mins even in the developer options, so I have to turn on my screen every 10 mins when driving, which is at best annoying, and at worst pretty dangerous. Wake Locks don't seem to work either. I will certainly be exploring other ways to listen to music in the car if the situation is still the same when my subscription is up for renewal this Christmas.

[aleiri]

I'm going to say it in Spanish

A quien mierda se lo ocurrio quitar esta funcionalidad. Me parece una insensatez digna de alguien que no piensa las cosas. O si las piensa?... Car thing?

Por favor vuelvan a poner CAR VIEW en Spotify YA!

Please put "CAR VIEW" back on Spotify NOW!

Gracias

Please put "CARVIEW" back on spotify NOW!

[flyingshazbot]

If Car view is not reinstated by the end of the year(41 days left), I have to cancel my subscription and go back to playing pirated music in my vehicle. You can chastise me all you want for it, I don't care. Piracy is an issue of service, not price. If you can't offer us a service/feature most of us love to use I can't support you with my money. You need our money, we don't need you're software.

EDIT: Oh look! Amazon has car view with their app.   https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/7/22372235/amazon-music-car-mode-driving-bigger-text-buttons-alexa

[Justiceforcarmode]

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