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.

[Calibrae]

Well, thank you captain obvious 😉
But I really wish spotify CEO, considering his background, could just say **bleep** you Majors. 🙂

[Flakes]

Ah ok, now i get it 😉

[Rankhar]

In reply to sofianeh's post on the previous page: I sent the following e-mail to Gizmodo and Techcrunch. Please feel free to copy/modify it and send it to any other techblog/website that you know:

Hey there Giz!

I was just wondering whether you guys were aware of a growing problem for Spotify users on Android; the app hasn't been updated since november 2011, it hardly works on ICS, a growing number of customers have been complaining on forums and on the community pages (see links below) and Spotify will not respond with anything other than "we're sorry, we do not provide information about updates".  One user wrote: "does anybody know anybody at websites that write about tech, who might be able to get some info from Spotify?". Hence this e-mail; don't know anyone working there, but just thought I'd drop you a line, in case you are interested in the topic.

Many premium users, like myself are pissed off. Spotify has the policy to respond to premium user queries within three days, but for the last couple of weeks, many users report that they are not getting any reply. I sent my first query to them one week ago, no reply as of yet.

In short, this is what is going on:
- Spotify has not updated its app since November, it crashes and is practically unusable for many people
- Spotify does not support ICS
- Spotify no longer adheres to its own policy of responding to premium user requests within three days
- Spotify officially states that it does not support mobile phones such as the Nexus S, the Galaxy Nexus, etc, which are the Android flagship phones. The total number of phones it does support is very dissapointing.

Community topics with more info about problem:
Topic 1: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/Last-client-update-was-november-2011/td-p/16175
Topic 2: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/Spotify-Android-app-crashing-update-long-overdue/td-p...

There are many other topics about the same problem, but these two have the most info in them. The situation boils down to the fact that users pay €/$ 120 per year for a service that has mobile music as one of the pillars of its business. And the Android part of that has been broken for months. Pretty depressing of course, especially when combined with crappy customer service...

Hope you find a way to help us Spotify users!

[Rankhar]

I sent the following e-mail to Spotify last week:

Dear sir/madam,

I recently wrote to you about problems I am having with the Spotify Android app. I am using a Google Nexus S phone, running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.3). I have been using the app on this phone for more than a year without problems. However, about two months ago, putting the app in online mode started making the app crash within a few seconds. Quickly putting it in offline mode would stop it from crashing, but because of this problem, it was no longer possible to sync new music onto my phone. I am not using any cache-cleaning apps or other such apps.

One of your employees advised me to reset my password. I did this, and also re-installed the app. It worked for a short while, but now I am having the same problems again.

I love Spotify, but this is getting a bit annoying. I pay 120 euros a year for Spotify, and its core business is providing an app for Android, iOS, and PC. Surely it should be on the top of your list to fix these issues as soon as possible? Many of my friends have Spotify on their Android phone, and many of them are having the same problems...

Many people on forums are complaining, but Spotify has so far not provided any useful information on the issue, apart from saying that we should try resetting our password. That is rather bad service for something you pay 10 euros a month for.

I now have three questions, that I hope you can answer:
- the Spotify employee that helped me told me that the Google Nexus S is not officially supported. How is this possible, as this model is one of the Google flagship phones, released by Google itself? Surely, this should be one of THE main phones on which your Android app should run?
- the Spotify app has not been updated in a very long time. Do you have an estimation of when we can expect an update?
- if you are working on an update, why do you not let your users know, so that the many people who are having problems with the app at least have something to look forward to? A simple blog message about what is going on would put many people's mind at ease, and save you from losing your paying customers.

Kind regards,

This was their reply, received today:

Hi there! 

Thanks for getting in touch with us here at Spotify! 

Best wishes, 

Andy 

Spotify Customer Service - Cambridge 

If I'm not in, anyone else on our dedicated Spotify team can read my notes and help you.

If you use Twitter, please follow @SpotifyStatus for service status updates and @Spotify for company updates.

I am at a loss for words...

[SteveBrammer]

I really, really hope that was an automated reply and not sent by a real person.

If not Spotify Support, and consequently we as customers, are in deep trouble.

[Richard]

Sorry about that Rankhar - it looks like Andy was a little too keen with the reply button and sent a message before it was finished.

He's now suitably embarrassed and you should receive the full email from him shortly.

[SteveBrammer]

---

@Richard wrote:
Sorry about that Rankhar - it looks like Andy was a little too keen with the reply button and sent a message before it was finished.

He's now suitably embarrassed and you should receive the full email from him shortly.

---

Given past performance and Spotify's usual policy to never, ever, ever confirm or deny anything or answer specific questions even when an answer could not possibly harm them or give any useful informtion to their competitors, the chances of his reply containing any answers to your three specific questions are slim to none, I would expect.

[jochristian]

wow a moderator!

Do you have any useful information for us?

[Rankhar]

Richard, thanks very much for finally getting back to us; most of us just want to know whether the problem is known, and whether you guys are hard at work fixing it. I have nothing against anyone personally, and I just received Andy's reply, no need to be embarassed, I must say I had a bit of a laugh about it, so no harm done.

The thing is, I think all of us here understand that you guys are a business that is undergoing a lot of growth, and therefore are very busy. But I think that we are right in making the point that even though you are growing fast, the last thing you should do is neglect the customers you already have; the fact that the app hasn't been updated since November even though ICS was available for developers months before, well, I hope you can understand that it makes a lot of us a bit dissapointed with the service. Combine that with the fact that it took over 9 pages and a lot of moaning from us to get a response, well, all that moaning could have been prevented by an early acknowledgement of the issues mentioned in this topic, an apology, and a hint at how long we'll have to wait for an update. We, or at least I, do not need an exact date, just an indication, just so we know we are not throwing away our money for months. That is a rather reasonable stance, right? 

The fact that we are so passionate about these problems only underlines the fact that we all really love Spotify and are therefore really bummed out that the mobile part of it is currently not working for us. I feel better just knowing you guys acknowledge the problem. Now I just really really hope the update will come soon...

For everyone, here's Andy's reply to my e-mail. I already performed the fix in it two weeks ago, but I'll do it again just to see if it might help this time:

  Hi,

Thanks for getting in touch, i am sorry for the reply that you received earlier it was sent in error i am afraid. Any way getting back to your questions, i understand that you are running the app on the Google Nexus S and you are experiencing offline issues. You are correct that this is a phone that we should support, but at this time we don't i am afraid. I also see that you have ICS running on it, and as such our Android app isn't compatible with any device running this at all.

However you are a valued customer and i would like to help you get up and running. I have had a look at your account and i can see that the playlist structure is broken on your account which i have now repaired for you. To complete the fix i will need you to perform a clean reinstall by following the below set of instructions: -

1. Open Spotify in your device
2. Go to "More" » "Settings" and select "Clear saved data"
3. Close Spotify and uninstall it from your device like this: Go to "Settings" » "Application"» "Manage applications".
4. Choose Spotify and press "Uninstall"
5. Restart your device
6. Then install Spotify once again through the Android Market, or by visiting m.spotify.com in your device's web browser

With regards to updates there is an update for the Android app in the pipeline but we have no date at this time as to when it will be released as we want it to be right before doing so that i am sure that you will appreciate.

The reason why we don't publicise improvements and new platforms in the pipeline is because things change, deals may fall through, etc... At the end of the day we would hate to promise our loyal users something and then for us not to bring it to fruition for whatever reason.

Best wishes,

Andy

Spotify Customer Service - Cambridge

If I'm not in, anyone else on our dedicated Spotify team can read my notes and help you.

If you use Twitter, please follow @SpotifyStatus for service status updates and @Spotify for company updates.

[licenced]

The Verge just published a story on this! http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/3/2922825/spotify-android-app-update-ics

[Rankhar]

The article on The Verge is being picked up by others now as well:

Androidcommunity

Phandroid

Ubergizmo

Gottabemobile

[Flakes]

Great work guys. I hope that will give them a little kick in the arse.

[Fluffe]

Indeed.

I think people understand you can't promise things that may not happen and make people more upset, but the wall of silence about anything atall android save this recent comment, was just terrible customer relations.

Still cancelled till something actually happens, but I shall keep an eye on it while trying out Deezer or w/e.

[Calibrae]

Well, the only answers we have right now from spotify are:

- We "accidently" hit the reply button too hard
- Wipe your app, data, throw your phone, buy another one and spotify will work.

Until I get 320kbds sync, gapless playback, auto resume, and a SMOOTH running client, I am not satisfied.
Good job with the blogs and newsites tho, I'm pretty sure it will shake things up.

[Spyke]

If anyone at Spotify is thinking "There, that's what happens when we don't stick to our policy of giving out no information. Now we have to deal with media speculation, raised hopes, and increasing negative publicity, and we've nothing to show for it yet.", that's not the point.

The point is that an updated Android app should have been ready within weeks if not days of the ICS launch last November.

[Calibrae]

Considering there're at least twice as many android phones activated everyday than iOS phones, the update should have been ready before iOS' !

and btw, even with iOS, they got a few more feats, a pretty stable client, but it runs scaled on iPads.. Looks very ugly on my girlfriend iPad 2, should look even uglier on iPad 3.

[SteveBrammer]

The problem that Spotify, and many other start-ups that develop for both iOS and Android, have is that regardless of user distribution iOS still carries more influence among investors and the press than Android does. You can bet that famous Spotify investors such as Sean Parker and Aston Kutcher both use iPhones and not Android. Spotify and other start-ups are more preoccupied with pleasing these types of people and having them say nice things about their product to the press than they are about their general user-base.

This is all very well and maybe even prudent when you are a start-up, but Spotify are getting past that phase and hopefully will start responding more to what their users want rather than trying to be media darlings in order to get exposure and investment money.

[Rankhar]

Yeah, agreed. As I said in the other topic, it mystifies me how a company that has mobile music at the heart of its business model, can fail to update its app for mobile music on one of the biggest mobile platforms. I really, really don't get that. 

[Spyke]

---

@Rankhar wrote:

Yeah, agreed. As I said in the other topic, it mystifies me how a company that has mobile music at the heart of its business model, can fail to update its app for mobile music on one of the biggest mobile platforms. I really, really don't get that. 

---

"One of"?

The biggest mobile platform globally, by some margin.

[Rankhar]

I stand corrected 🙂