Why iOS' spotify is so vastly superior to Android's

[Calibrae]

Two very simple things:

- Playback resume after leaving the phone idle, same song, same time.

- Album name displayed in playlists.

Is it so very hard to implement? 

[user-removed]

Why yes, yes it is hard.  

You see, I carry both an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy S3 and after using the iOS version I am fairly certain that nobody at Spotify uses an Android device.  If Spotify could, they would stop developing for it.  I've been sitting around for over a year waiting for AVRCP 1.3 to be implemented, and I still can't see what track is playing on the head unit in my car.  Every single Android device worth buying today supports Bluetooth 1.3.  What is the problem?

Another cool thing is we can no longer tell spotify where to put its offline data files - so it fills up the fast internal memory of the phone instead of allowing the user to store the music on the slower, more spacious external sd card.  Sure there are hack workarounds, but literally all four of these features we talk about would take 10 minutes each to implement.

Actually, I'd pay $20 a month for spotify if they fixed the AVRCP issue.  Are you listening, Spotify?

[David]

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@user-removed wrote:

Why yes, yes it is hard.  

You see, I carry both an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy S3 and after using the iOS version I am fairly certain that nobody at Spotify uses an Android device.  If Spotify could, they would stop developing for it.  I've been sitting around for over a year waiting for AVRCP 1.3 to be implemented, and I still can't see what track is playing on the head unit in my car.  Every single Android device worth buying today supports Bluetooth 1.3.  What is the problem?

Another cool thing is we can no longer tell spotify where to put its offline data files - so it fills up the fast internal memory of the phone instead of allowing the user to store the music on the slower, more spacious external sd card.  Sure there are hack workarounds, but literally all four of these features we talk about would take 10 minutes each to implement.

Actually, I'd pay $20 a month for spotify if they fixed the AVRCP issue.  Are you listening, Spotify?

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There are a number of staff here that totally rely on their Android devices. I've been known to dabble, too. 

[user-removed]

In the last 8 months have any of you listened to music in your vehicle on an Android device?

[David]

I have.

[darkbydesign]

So how come the iOS app is so much better? Is the more open platform more difficult to develop for? WIMP, the Norwegian alternative has a good android app. Time to change music supplier? 

I am having a hard time believing that ANY of the Spotify staffers use a Android tablet. Then they'd see that the app is FUBAR. 

[darkbydesign]

Double post, deleted. 

[user-removed]

It would be nice if Spotify would be a bit more transparent about their dev cycle.  Communicate what issues/features are currently in dev, that way people at least know if it's going to be fixed.  Some of these issues/requests are so simple in nature it's mind boggling they haven't been addressed in the last 8 months.

As I've said before, I'd pay more money if it meant having a decent app.  It's the same reason I dumped Slacker a year ago - their app was garbage.

Maybe some people at Spotify just love staring at "UNKNOWN" on their head unit?  Maybe it fills them with inner peace and purpose?

[Sam]

Trumps - One of our Android devs, Mikael, actually commented on the development process here: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Mobile-Android/Are-the-Spotify-UI-engineers-smoking-crack/m-p/212542...

They're not doing nothing, I can assure you.

[darkbydesign]

Didn't really tell us much... 

[user-removed]

Sam - I am not an android developer by trade, but in less than 2 hours I built a test project and figured out how to send metadata to my head unit based on information freely available to the public.  This request has been out there for at least 8 months.  What gives?

Some information on its priority/status would be nice, considering it takes all of about 15 total lines of additional code.

[Sam]

Trumps - As Mikael mentioned in his posts, it's not a case of simply adding code on top. There's a lot more to it.

[user-removed]

Sorry, but you're wrong.  All the app has to do is check the API level to see if it's 14 or greater, and then use the RemoteControlClient.MetdataEditor class under android.media.

It's built into Ice Cream Sandwich.

[David]

There's actually some functionality built into Android that aren't in the iOS version of Spotify right now. For example, one of my favourites is the Audio Effects feature - EQ and the like. 

[user-removed]

Get Android - problem solved!

ANDROID FOREVER 😉

[SteveBrammer]

Which doesn't work on HTC phones running HTC Sense 3, 4 or 4+ (just got an update to Android 4.1.1 and HTC Sense 4+ and it still doesn't work).

It works nicely on my Sony Tablet S though 🙂

[David]

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@SteveBrammer wrote:

Which doesn't work on HTC phones running HTC Sense 3, 4 or 4+ (just got an update to Android 4.1.1 and HTC Sense 4+ and it still doesn't work).

It works nicely on my Sony Tablet S though 🙂

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Beats Audio thing? That's still a weird thing we know about. I'll chase that up now, actually.