New update (0.5.3.56) available at Google Play

[SteveBrammer]

A new update, version 0.5.3.56 is available at Google Play.

New features are:

• Better reporting of why you are offline
• NFC sharing on ICS
• Audio effects on ICS

Fixes:

"More crashes and bugs are now history" is all it says!

No word at all on if the most complained about bugs like being able to put the cache on an SD card or the increased amount of data usage that many are experiencing, are fixed.

Maybe someone from Spotify could comment here and be a bit more specific about what the bug fixes actually fix?

[David]

Hello!

Yes yes, a new update for all. Our first ever support for an EQ, using the built-in options on Android 4.x devices; some notifications we could have been better at are now improved; and near field communication is supported on devices that have it. 

Those release notes in full - 

- New: Better offline mode bar, so you know why you’re offline.
- New: Share music with NFC (Near Field Communication) on ICS.
- New: Check out the Audio Effects on ICS (Settings > Audio Effects).
- Fixed: More crashes and bugs are now history.
- Fictitious: This app likes doing jigsaws on a rainy day.

Steve, as you stated, onto bug fixes. The big one that has been fixed is the problems experienced in this thread. 

Sometimes, strange characters in playlists were causing issues in making the application start up. The application before supported basic alpha-numeric (A-Z, 0-9) characters, but things like + or accented characters were causing the application not to load up, or crashing when in use. This should now be fixed for y'all. 

[mannp]

Although any update is better than nothing, I fail to see how NFC sharing is for the masses.

Importantly will it retain reference to files on the external sdcard if they are already there and working, or does it reset back to on the device?

Edit: I'm looking for NFC sharing on the 'wanted' thread -> http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/quot-Official-quot-new-application-release-missing-fe... linked, just in case you haven't read it yet 🙂

[steemcb]

Any chance somebody could put up a link to the latest APK download? Not available on the Play store in my country 😞

[David]

Is it not on m.spotify.com yet?

[steemcb]

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@David wrote:
Is it not on m.spotify.com yet?

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Nope, just tried it and I only got 0.5.2.87

[David]

Huh, weird. I'd imagine it should be updated within the next 24 hours. If it's not, just let us know and I'll chase it up.

[user-removed]

Still no landscape mode, how lame.

[Matze]

Notification Bar bug isn't fixed as well. C'mon guys, what kind of update is this again?

[licenced]

Yep still no option to change storage location that I can see. David I believe you were the one who stated a month or so ago that this would be in the next release ... What happened?

Spotify should be aware that the new audio effects setting does not appear on the One X (mine at least) - perhaps because these have beats audio instead of standard android eq?

As mentioned above I also don't recall anyone on the board requesting NFC sharing and yet features that have been requested by many and for months are still missing

[Azmerth]

Their audio effects messed up my evo 4g lte. It took away all the equalizer presets from BEATS. Well, now i have no audio effects.

[David]

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@licenced wrote:
Yep still no option to change storage location that I can see. David I believe you were the one who stated a month or so ago that this would be in the next release ... What happened?

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I don't recall stating that it would be, although I hope just as much as you guys that a feature supporting this will be available soon. 

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@licenced wrote:

Spotify should be aware that the new audio effects setting does not appear on the One X (mine at least) - perhaps because these have beats audio instead of standard android eq?

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Consider this esclated. If it's not being supported on some versions of EQ then that's certainly a problem. 

[personanongrata]

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@Azmerth wrote:

Their audio effects messed up my evo 4g lte. It took away all the equalizer presets from BEATS. Well, now i have no audio effects.

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nice!  you didn't think they'd get something right did you?

[David]

stringraysc & Azmerth - It's just been reported! I imagine the devices with Beats capability may only increase in the future, as they seem to doing some interesting stuff (and indeed seems to be on all the latest HTC's). I'll hopefully have an update soon. 

[personanongrata]

who wants to bet that the first person who actually tries NFC sharing will discover that it doesn't work?  or that it sends their personal information to random people nearby?

[SteveBrammer]

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@David wrote:

Hello!

Yes yes, a new update for all. Our first ever support for an EQ, using the built-in options on Android 4.x devices; some notifications we could have been better at are now improved; and near field communication is supported on devices that have it. 

Those release notes in full - 

- New: Better offline mode bar, so you know why you’re offline.
- New: Share music with NFC (Near Field Communication) on ICS.
- New: Check out the Audio Effects on ICS (Settings > Audio Effects).
- Fixed: More crashes and bugs are now history.
- Fictitious: This app likes doing jigsaws on a rainy day.

Steve, as you stated, onto bug fixes. The big one that has been fixed is the problems experienced in this thread. 

Sometimes, strange characters in playlists were causing issues in making the application start up. The application before supported basic alpha-numeric (A-Z, 0-9) characters, but things like + or accented characters were causing the application not to load up, or crashing when in use. This should now be fixed for y'all. 

---

It's always nice getting updates, but the new features in this release seem a bit niche and gimmicky, and if the thread you linked to is the only bug that is fixed then it's obvious that Spotify's internal priority list differs greatly from that of it's paying customers.

One of your engineers stated here that Landscape mode is coming and that it is high priority. What happened?

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/quot-Official-quot-new-application-release-missing-fe...

The ability to choose the storage location of the cache was taken away with the re-write for ICS and lot's of people have complained, I therefore naturally assumed that it too would be high priority. What happened there?

Lots of people have been complaining about high data usage using 3G in the new Android client, even when playing cached content. In fact so many people complained in this post (10 pages)...

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/Spotify-Android-app-using-a-LOT-of-data-on-3G/td-p/46...

That Per Bonomi opened a new post (currently 5 pages)...

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/Android-app-using-too-much-data-Post-details-here/td-...

in order to gather more data. Lots of people have taken a lot of time and effort submitting screen shots and data usage information. That's been ongoing since April and yet still no action from Spotify's side. What's happening there?

To me, the above three problems would appear to be the highest priority problems currently on the Android client. But that obviously doesn't seem to match with whatever the product manager for the Android client is thinking.

I personally think you would have done yourselves a favour by delaying this update until the above three problems were fixed. Now you poor support guys and girls are stuck with taking all the flac for an Android update that intrduces new features that nobody asked for and are of limited use anyway since they only work for users with Android 4 and above, and which fixes a bug which most people would deem to be less important than the three I mentioned above, and which could be worked around anyway by renaming the playlists using non-alpha numeric characters.

It's getting really hard to remain involved and enthusiastic here in the forum when we are faced all the time by what appears to be a complete lack of action on the matters of most importance by Spotify. Whats the point of all the threads posting the information that Per Bonomi has asked for regarding known problems if you don't address the problems and instead create a equalizer and implement NFC sharing? There seems to be a real disconnect between your paying users and whoever is responsible at Spotify for the Android client and until that is fixed I'm afraid that you and your collegues in support are in for a hard time from your Android customers.

[erric]

Any chance that this added the ability to transmit track info over bluetooth? 

[damunk]

We waited this long for NFC sharing???

Thanks for nothing, seriously. 

High priority my ass, I am still unable the most trivial of things for an app like this. Being able to save your music to external SD and a landscape mode should have been TOP PRIORITY, THESE ARE SMALL FIXES WHICH WE SHOULD HAVE HAD MONTHS AGO.

This is just another smack in the face and proof that you don't listen to your customers at all.

What a joke...

[David]

Steve - I imagine allowing support for a built in EQ in Android would have been an good way to trial an often requested feature. And it's also cool to get something that the iOS "master race" (as I believe you called them once) don't have, right? 😉

In terms of landscape mode, it would need to be before releasing it. Imagine if we released it and all the songs leaked out the side? What a mess. But seriously - The way the iPad app does landscape is pretty ideal. But that is a much bigger screen to work with - moving the current information in a landscape format could look potentially messy. It's still up there, however. That I can assure you.

In regards to high data usage, we're certainly aware of this and we're still working to get to the root of the problem, and why exactly the app is causing this to happen. Cache / SD selection I mentioned in a previous post.

[SteveBrammer]

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@David wrote:

Steve - I imagine allowing support for a built in EQ in Android would have been an good way to trial an often requested feature. And it's also cool to get something that the iOS "master race" (as I believe you called them once) don't have, right? 😉

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Sure it's cool to try out new features and even cooler to have something that iOS doesn't have, but is it really higher priority than the three issues I mentioned?