Last client update was november 2011

[Calibrae]

Hello,

I've asked around (facebook, twitter) and nobody answered me. The Android client is a real piece of **bleep**. 

It's hellishly slow. When someone sends an album or a playlist to my inbox, I can"t access it from my phone (single tracks only). The RAM usage is just ludicrous, so as soon as I open any other app, without playing music, Spotify closes, and since it takes 4 mn to boot and be usable, it's a real pain.

Seriously people, I know iPhones are the main trend, but android users are numerous enough to spend a few thousand bucks on a client update, dontcha think?

I give you 20€ every month (two accounts, one for me, one for my wife) and I expect a certain quality of service. Every day I pester against your android client, and I seriously think about closing both of my accounts.

At the very least, please give me an estimated time of update.

[Rankhar]

Several others have picked up the story:

Droidmatters

Slashgear

Helloandroid

Mr Mad (German)

Techhog

Cellphonenews

[Calibrae]

Bought my HTC One X on monday. Spotify runs, as crappily as before, but I can sync and stuff. 

But I noticed something very weird, the offline music randomly stutters. Tried a few times, stutters appear at the exact same second. Removed offline file, resynced it, still some stutters, but not a the same time. 

Can this mean spotify doesn't even hash check the downloaded music? oO

Anyway, I synced maybe 10go at once, I have to sync everything again -_-'

EDIT: Ho btw, 500 more views and we'll have more views on this topic than the sticky "is my phone compatible" 😄 good job guys 🙂

[David]

Rankhar - May I take this time to remind you of the community guidelines.

These links are fine to be here, but multiple posting of the same thing on multiple threads will be deleted.

[Calibrae]

Heh, I had an idea 😄 http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/50-off-for-android-users-until-the-mobile-app-gets-an-...

Pretty slick nah?

[Rankhar]

Sorry David, just trying to give people who come to these threads the best information by keeping them updated, as two threads with more or less the same subject are currently 'hot topics'. From now on, I'll direct them towards this topic and post updates here.

[David]

Thanks for being understanding. I'll leave the posts up for now, as this board has some posts that can be easy to miss at the moment.

[Spyke]

Just out of interest I sorted the one star reviews on the Google Play store Spotify page by date. It only displays 48 pages, equating to about 500 of the one star reviews, but the earliest date in those 500-odd is March 14th 2012.

By comparison, the earliest date in the 48 pages of 5 star reviews is December 9th 2011. That shows clearly how the perception of Spotify on Android is changing.

[Rankhar]

And yet more websites are carrying the story of the update. Just collecting these all here in this topic whenever I come across them, so that we can track this story as it develops:

Trustedreviews

Pocketnow

Androidheadlines

Androidworld (Dutch)

Internetnews (crappy translation of german original)

Netbooknews.de (original of crappy translation)

[Spyke]

Some nice additional points made in the Trusted Reviews article:

"The poor performance of the current Android app is made all the more annoying by the unfortunate truth that those using the mobile app are the most loyal Spotify customers of them all. To use Spotify on a mobile phone, you need to subscribe to the £10 a month Premium service. Those tied to a computer can get away with paying nowt, or £4.99 for unlimited streaming access."

[Rankhar]

@Spyke

That is indeed a good point. That is exactly why we feel left out in the cold. We pay the extra money, yet we don't get what we are paying for extra for. Spotify should either support its mobile users, or not, but the worst it can do is promise a certain level of service in exchange for some extra money, and then not deliver. 

[Calibrae]

That's why I posted an "idea". 50% off android premium user fees 'til an update that resolve the current bugs and give us something as good as (or better) than the ios app.

[Rankhar]

New links of websites covering the story:

Androidauthority

gearnyt.dk (Danish)

Techzine (Dutch)

[Calibrae]

Just tried RDIO thru my VPN (which goes straight to germany where RDIO is available). Still, I'm french and I live in France. That's the retarded thing about tried to keep borders on the internet. 

[Spyke]

The story's now broken on CNET:

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/major-update-promised-for-broken-spotify-android-app-50007561/

This represents a big opportunity for Spotify to cash in on the publicity, if they can get an updated Android app out the door quickly.

Note this doesn't have to be the new tablet optimised version, it simply has to be an update that lets the existing app run smoothly on Android 3.x and 4.x.

[crossbench]

I suppose the process can get a push when you answer on the facebook wall of cnet

https://www.facebook.com/cnetukofficial

[rferrett]

There have been reports on Phandroid as well http://phandroid.com/2012/04/03/major-update-in-the-works-for-spotify-android-app/

So is this the community kicking up a stink. Or is it a Spotify press release doing the rounds in anticipation of release. Darned I hope it is the latter!

[Rankhar]

@referret

Phandroid was one of the first to pick it up after The Verge broke the story a few days ago. One of us sent The Verge the open letter in this topic, that's what started this whole thing, all the other blogs copied it and some got in touch with Spotify who confirmed the update is in the works. Which was pretty much to be expected actually, what we really want is for them to hurry up 🙂

If you look at page 9 of this topic and read from there, you can see how it all started.

[rferrett]

Indeed. I have just morbidly been reading recent reviews on Play Market. 

I have said it often here that whilst I am moaning big time about the app it is only because I love Spotify. If I didn't think it was such a great product I owuld have just cancelled and moved on ages ago, it frustrates me because Spotify could be ace but they seemingly cannot ever be bothered with Android as anything other than an after thought.

I really hope that in future when a feature gets added to either the IOS or WP7 apps then it comes here too as a matter of urgency. Hopefully a little bad press will make Spotify just shows us Droid lovers a bit more TLC 

[rferrett]

Informative the last few pages. Amazing what happens so quickly when I drop of teh interwebs for a couple of weeks!

I realise that Spotify are unlikely to give dates in case they can't meet them. But hell it owuld be nice if they could give us an idea, are we talking weeks or months?

And as for the "we only want to release it when ready and working line" sorry if I laugh histerically. The existing app doesn't work. And Spotify regularly release beta versions for people to test. I'm up for that it seriously cant be any worse than the existing Android app surely?

So c'mon Spotify release and ICS beta!

[rferrett]

So I put in a idea based on this:-

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Release-a-ICS-beta-Spotify/idi-p/37113